


Cavedweller

by jennajuicebox



Series: Be Still, My Heart [2]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Child Abuse, Depression, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2019-06-09 11:11:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 60,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15266241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jennajuicebox/pseuds/jennajuicebox
Summary: Her mother once told her she was brave.A word Katniss wouldn't have chosen for herself.Brave implies that you run headlong into the scary unknown. Brave implies you face the things that want you dead. It dredges up thoughts of conquering armies and swords raised over head. Katniss isn't brave. As much as she would never admit it to herself she is scared out of her wits.She is staring into a gaping chasm, waiting for it to swallow her whole.Everlark Panem AU





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Another WIP- I know- I'm crazy!
> 
> I have a couple of people to thank!
> 
> Shannon17. She's my girl! I have to thank her for her endless support! She is amazing and fantastic and absolutely beautiful and without her this story would still be sitting stagnet in my documents gathering dust. Shannon I love you friend!!!!!!
> 
> Wooly- she beta'd this work and she is just incomperable. If you haven't checked out RADIO I suggest you do that right now because it is just stunning. Really, I can't sing her praises enough and any mistakes are my own, these two ladies are perfect in every way and had nothing to do with it. 
> 
> Anyway I hope you guys enjoy!

The silence is strange.  
  
That is the first thought that drags through her brain as she opens the door. Prim is usually at the stove making dinner while her mother makes her rounds. Not today. Today dust motes hang in the sunlight that streams through the dirty windows. Katniss can feel her stomach slowly sinking inside of her at the sight of her house, cold and empty on such a bright spring day.  
  
She calls out for Prim and is answered by more quiet.  
  
She slips into the hall and Buttercup is mewling at the doorway to the bedroom the three Everdeen women share.  
  
“What are you whining about?” Katniss rolls her eyes at the ugly old kitchen cat as she rounds the corner into the room, already calling for her sister. That’s why at first she doesn't see it.  
  
In the space of the few seconds it takes for her eyes to adjust to the low light streaming in from the curtains, Katniss Everdeen's entire world caves in. She thinks her game bag slides off her shoulder and lands with a muted thud at her feet, but the entire world feels like it's underwater: soft and drowsy and suffocating.  
  
And in the coming months she will be asked so many times what it was like to find her mother dead. She will alway gives a curt answer that is coldly polite and never, ever the truth. She will say things like “It must have been her time.” Or “She's at peace now.”  
  
When in reality all Katniss Everdeen can think is, Why couldn't she have waited just a couple more years? Katniss would have been eighteen and free of the reaping and able to work in the mines if she had to. But at fifteen it was forbidden and she and her sister are going to be forced into the community home to suffer who knows what. They'll quite possibly be separated and starved, beaten and used and all because her selfish mother couldn't off herself just a few measly years later?  
  
She stares too long.  
  
The only way she knows this is her eyes start to burn in their sockets and some primal part of her wakes up at the feeling. She blinks once, twice and then takes a shaky breath, her lungs sing in relief.  
  
She allows herself one moment. One. One small selfish moment where the tears well up and threaten to spill. Where her throat is tight and her hands ball into fists at her side in both rage and grief.  
  
Then the moment is over and she cuts her mother down with her hunting knife before Prim comes home and sees her like that.  
  
Poor sweet, gentle Prim.  
  
An orphan.  
  
No, not exactly- she still has Katniss and Katniss still has her bow and as long as Katniss has her bow they will be fed, no matter what the Capitol decides to do with the Everdeen sisters.  
  
She drags her mother to the bed and covers her with a blanket, all the way up to her neck. Then she sits on the very edge of the canvas mattress, delicate, like death is contagious and hovers over her mother, much like those months so long ago in her memory they have practically melted to ash. Katniss reaches out and runs her fingers across her mother's forehead, brushing the lank blonde hair away from her skin and behind her ear.  
  
She tries to think of something to say but can't.

  
Has the world always been this still? Or is she finally turning to stone?  
  
~~..~~  
  
Katniss waits for Prim on the porch.  
  
When the girl hears the news she falls against Katniss sobbing. Katniss pets her hair and hums soothing things while her sister cries herself out and when she is finally hollow of tears they sit on the warped wood steps, hand in hand, watching the sky slowly bleed into the same shade as the skin of a plum. And when Prim finally falls asleep Katniss leaves her under an old knitted blanket on the couch and makes the trek to the Hawthorne's house two streets over, feeling as if it were in a different district the way her tiredness carried to her very marrow.  
  
Gale is slender as a knife and just as sharp, but today no sharp words pass between them as they walk to the undertakers. His hand slips into hers and for once she doesn't shake him away but she does look away, gray eyes flitting toward the coal darkened dust under her boots and she is grateful that he doesn't offer her any useless platitudes or flowery words. Just the silence that sticks to her ribs in a way food never does.  
  
The undertaker will collect her mother in the morning. He seems upset Katniss has disturbed his dinner, but she guesses that after awhile death seems as simple as hanging the washing or skinning squirrels. A chore, albeit an unpleasant one. With a stiff nod and an agreement on the price, she slips down the steps and into the darkness where Gale waits.  
  
“You really alright?” Gale asks, his gray eyes locked on her face. She shrinks a little under his concerned gaze. There is no lying to Gale, especially when he is looking at her like she is made of lace. She can feel that tightness in her chest, that hot burning in her throat and she grits her teeth against the tears. Her voice is flat and thick but she holds strong and the tears don't fall.  
  
“I'll be fine.”  
  
“What are you going to do?”  
  
  
She thinks he means tomorrow, after the undertaker comes and Prim wakes to no breakfast and Katniss has to put her face into the mask she has been wearing for so long she wonders if it can really be considered a mask anymore.  
  
“What I've always done.” His hands are rough and calloused as he catches her face between them. Her hand comes up and covers his. “I'll survive.” It’s a promise.  
  
“We could run,” Its  a statement. Water is wet and they could run for it. The sheer ridiculousness makes her chuckle, to Gale? she is flat out laughing at him. She tries to imagine it. The two of them out in the woods with a gaggle of mouths to feed. They wouldn't make it a day. Prim would be afraid of snakes and Vick has a cough and what of little pink Posy?  
  
“It'd never work Gale.” Her voice is placating and firm if that is even possible.  
  
His eyes tell her exactly what his voice can't and where she can shove her high minded know-it-all attitude.  
  
“It'd work.”  
  
He sounds so sure of himself, of her and not for the first time she feels something deep and vile in her stomach.  
  
Something that tastes like shame on her tongue.  
  
“Gale,” Her voice is gentle and he can't hide the wound it inflicts in him, not from her and just before he turns away she thinks he says something but its so low she can't understand it.  
  
Or maybe it's just him she can't understand.  
  
~~..~~  
  
  
Katniss wakes before her little sister and goes out on the porch with a mug of mint tea to wait for the undertaker and his mule to round the corner with the plain pine box in tow. She leans against the railing, worn with time and built by her father's two capable hands.  
  
It's a gray day, pregnant with the scent of impending rain. Katniss itches to run for the woods. The safety of the maples and gutted logs and rotting leaves and the small freedom from prying eyes. The only place in all of Panem she could really be herself.  
  
The undertaker comes and Katniss follows him inside her mother’s room, but she stops dead in her tracks in the doorway.There is a wreath of daisies surrounding her mother's pale face. Prim must have snuck herself in here in the night. Katniss tried to shield her from seeing the bruising on her mother's neck or the blueness of her thin lips, but her sister has always been so much more independent than Katniss ever gave her credit for, even at eleven. Katniss ignores the sting of rejection that her sister didn’t come and find her in the night but chose their cold, dead mother.  
  
The stooped man snickers and it takes everything in Katniss not to gut him with her knife. She grinds her teeth and pays the man with the last of her coin.  
  
She clutches Prim’s hand and they watch the men load what is left of Althea Everdeen into the rickety old cart and drag her toward town.  
  
Where her mother always belonged.

Just as the cart crests the hill, Raven Talbert kisses her fingers and raises her arm. She’s a waif of a thing, no more than six years old. Katniss remembers her tiny little frame as she wilted on their kitchen table, being swallowed by fever.  


It’s hard to believe it is the same little girl standing here today, paying final respect to her mother, not Althea Everdeen the merchant but Thea Everdeen the healer.. Its too much for Katniss to take and she tucks tail and makes a run for the only place she is sure is safe. She doesn’t stop until she has reaches the lake, shining silver in the early afternoon light.  
.  
  
She can feel her father in the cool wind that brushes the hair from her face and the cries of the waterfowl from across the water. Katniss tilts her head up toward the gun barrel clouds and lets her eyes slide shut.  
  
  
She doesn't realize she is crying until the keening howl escapes out of her gritted teeth and rings through the stillness. And then she can't stop it and her knees buckle. Her fingers scraping the soft top layer of slippery mud at the lake's edge.  
  
She stays like that long after the tears dry to salt on her skin. Then she stands on shaking legs, straightens the collar of her leather jacket and heads back home again.  
  
  
  
~~..~~

  
Her mother is buried in the Seam cemetery. Her coffin is lowered down into the red clay as the sky rips open and rain drenches the two Everdeen girls that stand shivering in their Reaping best. Prim sobs against Katniss, her face pressed against her dress, sniffling helplessly.

  


Katniss glances backward to see someone standing under the branches of the old, rickety oak tree near the entrance.

  


The baker.

  


He has a bouquet of wilted flowers and his youngest boy in tow. Peeta. Katniss feels her throat closing in on her at the sight of him in his ill fitting suit, rain dripping from the end of his nose.

  


It takes everything she has not to stride over there and slap Peeta square across the face. How could he show up here today of all days and remind her what charred bread feels like against her skin? His eyes flicker up to hers, deep and dark and filled with sympathy. Her eyebrows knot and her lips purse and his eyes flit away.

  


The rain recedes, softly pummeling an umbrella that has suddenly appeared above the two girls. Katniss whirls around and comes face to face with a woman she has never met before, a woman she would know anywhere, if only for those blue eyes that look like the petals of an iris.

  


“Hello, Katniss.” The woman says in a voice that is plain and stern but not unkind. Katniss pulls her little sister closer. Prim looks up at the woman curiously, sniffling still. Katniss tries to swallow the hard, painful lump in her throat to speak, but Prim beats her to it.

  


“Who are you?” Prim asks. The woman leans down so she can look Prim in the face. Katniss, not so subtly, pushes her little sister behind her.

  


“There is no need to be scared.”

  


Katniss meets faces the woman, eyes locked with hers, chin raised with defiance.

  


“Katniss who is this?” Prim says.

  


“Our Grandmother, Prim.”

  


“You are smart as a whip aren't you?” The woman says. Katniss can feel Prim tugging on her hand but she ignores her, narrowing her eyes, trying to figure out exactly what this woman could possibly want now that the only thing linking them was tragedy. “Just like my Thea, and you, child, look just like her.” The woman reaches out and touches Prims face, fondly, and her finger traces the edge of Prim's cheekbone like she has done it a thousand times. “You can call me Lilah if you like.”

  


Prim smiles.

  


Katniss doesn't.

  


Her feet shuffle backward just slightly.

  


“I don't want to call you anything.”

  


“Oh sweetheart, can't we talk somewhere else? You're soaked to the bone and I had Abraham make us honeyed bus-”

  


“What do you want with us?”

  


The question hangs in the air between them. Katniss doesn't dare drop her eyes. Lilah meets them steadily. Katniss is like steel but what chance does steel have against something as unknown to her as this woman?

  


“ I want you to come and live in the apothecary.”

  


Katniss stares at the woman for a long time, the same way she stared at her mother as she hung from the closet door, and now, just like then, her body forces her forward.

  


“How dare you,” Katniss seethes. “Come here today, after everything? We are burying my mother!” Her voice has been slowly rising and the grave digger stops his work and stares.

  


“She was my daughter.” The woman says in a hushed voice. The sound of it stills Katniss. “I always wanted to see you, Thea requested we stay away. What was I supposed to do?”

  


Katniss blinks.

  


“Katniss-” Prim whispers against her side.

  


“Hush, Prim.” Katniss says, not daring to take her eyes off the woman in front of her.

  


“We need someone to take over the apothecary. From what I've heard young Primrose is just as talented in the family business as Thea.”

  


“I am.” Prim says in a shaky voice. Katniss can't help but run her fingers through her sisters soaked hair fondly.

  


“I don't doubt it, little one.”

  


Its then that the realization hits Katniss. Something in Lilah's voice that washes Katniss in cold dread.

  


They want Prim.

  


And only Prim.

  


Her sister is shoved behind her before she realizes what exactly she is doing. If she had her arrows she doesn't doubt one would have been lodged in the woman before Katniss could take in a breath. Saving Prim is an instinct as ingrained in Katniss as eating or breathing.

  


“You can't take her.” Katniss snarls.

  


“Think about it Katniss.” Lilah says, stepping forward and placing her hand on Katniss's arm. “How long do you think the two of you will last alone in the seam?”

  


Katniss can barely hear the woman over the thunder of her blood in her ears.

  


“Thea was always supposed to take over the apothecary, Primrose is the natural choice to take over the apothecary when I die.”

  


What about her?

  


The granddaughter with the skin too dark to be deemed merchant acceptable? Without Prim what would Katniss do? Who would she be?

  


She doesn't dare ask.

  


“Would you really deny her a future? Food in her belly every night, just because you don't want to lose her? Are you really so selfish?”

  


Katniss curdles at word. Of course she is.

  


“What about me?” Her voice thick as syrup. And when Katniss looks down her hands are shaking violently at her sides. Prim hugs her around the middle and it brings her down from the place somewhere above she was residing.

  


Lilah smiles.

  


It's blank and cool.

  


“Would you like to stay with your sister?” The voice is almost soothing.

  


Katniss doesn't trust her voice not to crack so she nods once.

  


“Then I am sure we could find some use for you.” Lilah says and it is almost kind.

  


Katniss turns around to the space the baker just occupied.

  


He is gone now.

  


So is his son.

  


But the flowers rest next to the tree.

  


Daffodils.

  


Her mother's favorite.

  
Katniss tugs on Prim's hand and they trek home in the rain. They stop under the awning of the porch to wring out their braids and peel off their soaked boots. She’s so busy in shucking off her wet socks she almost steps right on them- two slices of spiced cake, rich and buttery and blessedly still warm.  
  
Prim coos gently and plucks the plate off the ground. She makes Katniss sit at the table while she doles out even amounts on two plates and brings them back. Katniss stares down at her slice, inhaling the smell of cinnamon and honey, sweet and spice all at once. She doesn't realize her hands are clenched into fists at her side until Prim clears her throat softly.  
  
“Planning to go hunting with that fork?” Katniss snaps her head toward the utensil she brandishes like a knife. She forces her fingers apart and the fork clatters to the table.  
  
How dare he come here, to _her_ house and leave this on _her_ doorstep? Especially when she is already so indebted to him.  
  
She has nothing to give him in return. Nothing at all.  
  
And she hates him for it.  
  
~~..~~  
  
Slowly the rain recedes, leaving the blistering sun to bake the muddy road to dust. The air so humid that Katniss's braid sticks to her neck and burns like a torch down her back. She'll be happy when this is over and she can climb the hills to her lake, maybe even take a dip in the cool water. Katniss raps on the back door of the bakery smartly and waits with her foot tapping impatiently against the worn out wood.  
  
“Miss Katniss,” The baker says pleasantly. “I didn't think you'd be hunting so soon, well with the pass-” He must see something in her eyes because he doesn't finish that sentence. Just nods his head. “Anything to trade today young lady?”  
  
No, she doesn't have anything to trade. She hikes her bag up higher on her shoulder as she asks for his youngest. The baker looks oddly suspicious but calls out for Peeta and retreats to the darkened kitchen, away from sight, but something inside Katniss knows he is listening.  
  
“Can I help you?” His voice, she has only ever heard it in passing and small snippets. Its kind and soft and slightly gruffer than she expected. “Oh- uh- hi.” He stammers out as she digs through her bag for the plate.  
  
“Here,” She snarls as she shoves the still dirty plate into his hands and folds her arms over her chest. “Take this back.”  
  
He looks quickly over his shoulder and slips out the door, shutting it quietly and letting the screen door snap shut behind him. Katniss is content to just stand there and glare at him.  
  
“Um-”  
  
She doesn't give him a chance to speak.  
  
“I don't need or want your help, do you understand?” His eyes are two surprised moons, staring at her, staring inside of her. She wants to list under his gaze like a flower in the summer sun. She doesn't shrink back, she forces her spine straighter.  
  
“I understand,” He says finally and Katniss gives him a quick nod then she's walking away from him, boots thumping against the steps as she stomps away, passing by that raggedy apple tree, her knuckles brushing the rough bark and she doesn't risk looking back behind her.  
  
  
~~..~~  
  
Katniss has nightmares where she is falling through the air.  
  
Looking up at the sun.  
  
She always jolts awake just before she hits the ground.  
  
~~..~~  
  
She hides.

  


Gale doesn’t seek.

  


**~~..~~**

  
Katniss climbs the hills that surround the district until her legs scream at her to stop and even still she keeps going, not stopping until she reaches a plateau overlooking the deep waters of her father's lake.

  


She does her best to commit it all to memory.

  


The swaying sweet grass listing in the overbearing sun. The willows swaying in the breeze. The cicadas buzzing, The sky that is so big it could swallow you whole if it had a mind to. She even memorizes the weight of her bow in her hand, the way her shirt clings to her sweat soaked back, the way the breeze brushes the wisps of her bangs back from her face.  

  


Time keeps dragging on and there is only so long before the peacekeepers figure out that Katniss and Prim are alone in the house.

  


It’s then that Katniss knows for certain that they will accept Lilah Warren’s offer.

  


The district is unforgiving and Katniss is ill equipped.

  


A lifetime of uncertainties hangs before Katniss. She still takes an hour to slip out of her jacket and boots and swim like she did when she was a sunburned and scraped up kid out hunting with her father. She turns somersaults in the water and hunts the waterfowl and watches the minnows dart around her.

  


As she walks back to the district she takes the extra time to run her hands over the smooth bark of the birch trees. She admires a pair of fox hiding in a thicket. She walks the trails her father wore down with his boots.

  


And when she reaches the fence she turns back.

  


She says a quiet thank you to her woods.

  


She is glad it was hers even if she can’t keep it.  
  
  
**~~..~~**  
  
The morning they are set to leave for town, Katniss wakes before Prim and wanders out into the kitchen. She brews strong tea and sits in the brittle rocking chair on the porch, watching the stoop backed miners leaving for the morning shift.  
  
She listens to the quiet and tries not to think of the family that lived here once. She fails and thinks of nothing else.  
  
Her mother once told her she was brave.  
  
A word Katniss wouldn't have chosen for herself.  
  
Brave implies that you run headlong into the scary unknown. Brave implies you face the things that want you dead. It dredges up thoughts of conquering armies and swords raised over head. Katniss isn't brave. As much as she would never admit it to herself she is scared out of her wits.  
  
She is staring into a gaping chasm, waiting for it to swallow her whole.

  
~~..~~  
  
Temperance Ivy Warren comes to collect the Everdeen girls and Katniss sighs a breath of relief that it isn’t Lilah. Temperance is Katniss’s aunt. A woman with a quiet manner and lilting gate. Katniss glares right into the woman’s astonishing eyes.

  


“One is green.” Prim says, pointing at the woman’s eyes. Katniss suddenly wishes the ground would swallow her whole. Temperance leans against her cane and smiles at Prim and Katniss is relieved it is neither aggressive nor malicious but is kind, with an edge of wry humor.

  


“Well, I guess the good lord couldn’t choose just one color.” Temperance says with a shrug.

  


Katniss lifts her bag onto her shoulder and ushers Prim outside. Standing on the porch Katniss looks at the Everdeen house.

  


It is just a skeleton now.

  


She says goodbye to the chipped paint and every summer's day spent out on the porch. She bids goodbye to the ghosts that dart, crouch and whisper all around her.

  


Then she shuts the door firmly on them.

  


Because there is nothing left to say.

  


. Katniss drags Prim's ancient nanny goat behind them while Prim wrestles with the yowling cat. They have just the clothes on their backs and a few sentimental things Katniss couldn't bear to part with. Her parents wedding photo, the plant book, her game bag filled with a few dresses for Prim and few old shirts of her fathers for Katniss.  
  
The apothecary is just down the wooden walkway from the bakery. Of course Katniss knew it was here but avoided it like the plague since she knew no Everdeen was welcome there. She put the Warren's out of her mind. She had her father, her sister, even her mother. What need did she have for them?  
  
  
Katniss can hear soft voices coming from the other room. The voices stop when the door slams shut behind them. Lilah comes out in a silk dress. Her silver hair pinned up and perfect. She ignores Katniss and wraps her arm around Prim warmly. Katniss hangs back, watching Prim smiling at the woman.

  


“Temperance, take Katniss to her room.” Lilah demands.  
  
Katniss's room is small, just a twin bed in the middle of a musty room. A mirror, wardrobe and desk. She drops her game bag on the bed and stares at the quilt.  
  
She feels like she has seen it before, or one just like it on her mothers bed in their room. Shades of pale pink, deep red and black in a pattern meant to look like a bears paw. It reminds Katniss of the way her mother looked underneath it as she lay dead on the bed, her eyes shut peacefully and her lips parted as if trying to speak from beyond the grave.  
  
It takes Katniss three tries but finally the window groans upward and she inhales great lungfuls of precious fresh air, her braid falling over her shoulder.  
  
The air is heavy and hot and she is melting in her upstairs room. The walls are too small and she is just too dark-skinned and skinny for this family. She needs a few hours to think, she just- she needs her woods and the open air and the wide, rolling hills of wavering grasses and cicadas that buzz and water cool and green with fish that shine iridescent in the sun.  
  
She needs her freedom.  
  
She empties the game bag on her bed and slips it over her shoulder, only giving a small backwards glance before she shimmies her way out of the window and to the tree that overhangs the roof. In just a few seconds she is dropping down to the ground, rolling up on the balls of her feet, smiling triumphantly at the now empty room.  
  
She throws her braid over her shoulder and smiles breathless up at the sky, already feeling lighter.  
  
“Katniss?”  
  
She whirls around and she can't help the audible groan she gives, of course its him. They just look at each other. Her and the boy with the bread. He holds an empty bucket at his side. He must have been out feeding the pigs.  
  
“How do you know my name?” She blurts.  
  
What a stupid question.

They've gone to school together since they were five, of course he knows her name and she feels her cheeks grow hot with embarrassment.  
  
“Uh, school I guess.” He says, running his hands through his hair. “I'm Peeta Mell-”  
  
“I know who you are.” She snaps, cutting him off.  
  
“Okay.” He says simply. His eyes widening at her sharp tone.  
  
  
She should just thank him for the bread and be done with him for good. His shoulders are a bit too broad and his eyes just a little too blue for her liking. But when she opens her mouth to speak he has already beat her to the punch.  
  
“What are you doing?” He asks.  
  
She feels a wave of irritation shoot up her spine. Every second she spends standing in the hot sun with Peeta Mellark the more likely she gets caught in the backyard and never even makes it out passed the fence.  
  
“I'm going-” Her voice cuts out. What does she tell him? She knows he knows that she hunts, it is the worst kept secret in the district, but it's not exactly like she goes around advertising. “for a walk.” She mumbles finally. Her eyes meet his for a moment and this time her eyes flit away from his.  
  
“A walk huh. In this heat?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
He seems amused by her answer, leaning against the tree in a way that seems both vulnerable and sly. His hands are shoved in the pockets of his pants and he looks away and laughs. Something stirs deep within Katniss when he look at her.  
  
“I meant what are you doing sneaking out of Lilah Warren's upstairs bedroom?”  
  
“I-I-I live here now.” She sniffs at him. Maybe her tone is a little more haughty than she means it to be but she has a sneaking suspicion he just brings that out in her.  
  
“Oh, so were neighbors then.” He says quietly, almost to himself. They both fall into silence, Peeta leaned up against the tree and Katniss pushing a pebble around with the toe of her boot. She is glad he doesn’t bring up her mother or the funeral or the way she reacted to the cake he left for her.  
  
“Anything else?” She snarls finally, crossing her arms over her chest. She can’t seem to stop herself from being rude to him.  
  
“Boy, you’re friendly aren't you?” His words aren't unkind or biting in any way but she feels herself shrink down anyway. She hears a noise come from the kitchen of Lilah- her- house. She flinches back and turns to Peeta silently willing him to understand.

  


“It’s alright,” He says. “I won’t tell anyone I saw you.”

  


She can’t help but narrow her eyes in his direction. “Why not?” She whispers.

  


“Seems like you could use an ally, huh?”

  


Allies.

  


She manages to crack a rare half smile. Maybe she wasn’t good at doing the friend thing but she might be able to do allies okay.

  


“I’m going to go.” She says flatly

  


It is his turn to smile and she likes his smile. It’s shy but it also has a hint of sweetness that makes her knees feel a little weak. Instead of over analyzing what on earth that could mean she unceremoniously turns and walks off.

  


“Goodbye then.” He calls after her and she gives him a backward wave, not nearly brave enough to turn to look at him.

  


**~~..~~**

  


She comes back to the district at dusk, slipping like a spectrum under the fence with three fat rabbits and two squirrels in her bag, a rare pull for starting so late in the day. She also collected fiddleheads, wild mint and red clover. She’s dirty, drained, exhausted and happier than she’s been in a great while.

  


She almost forgets herself and walks to her old home in the seam before she remembers she lives in town now, an extra two miles from the hob and out of her way.

  


Well, at least the hob hasn’t changed. It's still wild and crowded as ever. With the pickpockets and harlots and the people betting on bare knuckle boxing filled up on Ripper’s white liquor . No one even gives her a glance as she pushes her way through the crowd. She sells a rabbit to Sae and leaves one for her new wards, who knows, perhaps Lilah likes Rabbit stew. Katniss has a sneaking suspicion she will have to get on the woman's good side and quick. She already hates Katniss but maybe if she shows she is useful they might let her keep going out into the woods, if they can benefit from it in some way.

  


Sae pays her and Katniss is on her way. No time for chit chat it is nearing dark and her grandparents are sure to have noticed she left.

  


She leaves one of the squirrels on the bakers back porch. Maybe she can start to finally repay Peeta Mellark for his kindness all those years ago. Maybe they’ll finally be on the same level and she can start the process of forgetting the way those blue eyes look crinkled with worry every time she catches him staring at her.

  


Maybe she’ll sprout wings and fly to the moon.

  


It is a nice thought though.

  


Katniss launches herself up onto the branch easily and inches her way over to her window. Her fingers reach out to the worn wood and she feels her stomach drop.

  


The window is closed.

  


Someone came into her room and shut it.

  


Katniss tries with all of her might to force the window open but it doesn't budge. Someone locked it. She leans back against the trunk of the tree and tries to catch her breath because suddenly the air has turned to lead in her lungs.

  


“Fuck,” She mutters to herself.

  


At this exact space in time Katniss is sure she hates her mother with every fiber of her being. If her mother hadn't done what she did they would be home right now, eating a dinner of fish and strawberries and any of the other bounties the summer has to offer but instead Katniss is up in this tree, feeling all of eleven years old, scared and unsure of herself..

  


She begins to crawl down to the ground, achingly slow, ready for any predators that might be waiting.

  


The second her boots hit the ground she is hugging the side of the building, slipping down the alley with her hand grazing the rough red brick.

  


She glances around the side of the building. Lilah sits under the glow of the overhead light in a old rocking chair on the porch. She looks serene, sitting with a book in her hand. Maybe she isn't waiting for Katniss at all, just enjoying the balmy evening before curfew descends.

  


Katniss gives a reluctant sigh and steps forward into the halo of yellow light that casts odd shadows. It makes Lilah's eyes look black and when they narrow in her direction Katniss is reminded so much of those wild dogs out beyond the fence she finds herself slinking back, wishing for the safety of her tree.

  


“Ah, there you are.” Lilah says flatly. Katniss feels every muscle tense to the point of pain. She waits for the yelling, the anger but Lilah just stands, setting her book aside. Katniss feels horror flood her veins at the book. It's so familiar, from the cracks in the leather bindings to the yellow, frayed pages. So many nights she has spent huddled next to the hearth writing in it. Her father’s plant book.

  


“You can't have that.” Katniss says, dropping her bag to the dusty walkway and reaching for the book.

  


“That book belongs to _my_ family!” Lilah snaps so suddenly Katniss stills her whole body, waiting for something she can't be sure of. “One of the most prestigious and wealthy families in all of twelve, Katniss. I will not be made a fool of.” Lilah's voice is now quiet, so quiet Katniss strains her ears to hear it.

  


She is just inches from Katniss.

  


“What is in the bag child?”

  


Katniss cringes. If she wasn't happy about the book she sure won't be happy about the rabbit. Still some small part, deep inside of Katniss smiles wickedly.

  


“None of your damn business.”

  


Lilah stoops quickly and snatches up the bag so fast Katniss doesn't have time to react. She dumps the contents into the dirt at Katniss's feet and spends a long time staring at the soft gray pelt of the rabbit.

  


“What is that?”

  


“Dinner.” Katniss says dully.

  


  “Where'd you get him?”

  


Katniss could lie, say that she stumbled across him out by the meadow but she is a piss poor liar and it isn't like Lilah doesn't know how her father made his real living. How many years did he trade with the apothecary?

  


Instead she locks her jaw and refuses to speak.

  


Lilah picks the rabbit up and holds him out to Katniss.

  


“Take it!” She snarls when Katniss doesn't move. Slowly Katniss does, wrapping her fingers around his soft little paw and letting him drop to her side.

  


“Oh Katniss, I remember your father quite well.” Lilah says as if talking to a friend over tea. “He was tall and handsome and when he spoke you couldn't help but listen. I can see why my daughter liked him.”

  


Love. Her daughter loved him with every ounce of herself. Katniss keeps this correction to herself. But tucks it away somewhere deep and dark inside of herself where no one can take it away.

  


“He took her away and poisoned her against us.”

  


Katniss suddenly feels sick.

  


“You don't know the rules around here yet.” Lilah sniffs. Her hand wrenches back and snaps against Katniss's cheek with dull thud. Katniss is so shocked all she can do is stand there with a hand to her stinging cheek, her wide eyes staring at Lilah as she calmly tucks her hands into the pocket of her pale pink apron.

  


Time stops.

  


“Trust me when I say that you will.”

  


With a swish of her skirt Lilah is gone and Katniss can only stand there as the lock slides into place, she doesn’t have to touch the doorknob to know it won’t budge.

  


She isn't sure how long she stands there staring at the door, rabbit hanging limply from one hand, the other pressed against her cheek.

  


She stares at her reflection in the glass door. Her  eyes wide and glassy, skin pulled tight over her bones. Her braid spilling like ink over her shoulder.

  


Who is this girl staring back at her?

  


Does she realize just how fucked everything really is?

  


Katniss turns on her toes and trips down the stairs. The skin of her cheek is hot against her palm, though the pain doesn't bother her nearly as much as it should. It is a different kind of pain that has her worried one that constricts her throat and makes her chin quiver so hard she can't control it.

  


She turns her eyes to the sky. As she often does on nights that seem to go on forever.

  


The sky is the color of a beetle's wing and the stars are sprayed across the emptiness both lovely and lonely.

  


Katniss leans against the tree.

  


Her father taught her the constellations long ago. She has used the stars to get home many times on a long trek through the woods. Sometimes Prim and her liked to take an old blanket out to the backyard so Katniss could point out the pictures in the sky, you know, before.

  


Primrose would sometimes talk to their father then. Whisper secrets like someone was listening. Katniss never had the heart to tell her.

  


Only the hopeless do things like pray.

  


Katniss knows that words whispered go unheard. In fact she could scream them in defiance. She could tear at her shirt, gouge out her eyes, it doesn't matter, all she will ever get is indifferent silence.

  


The silence has always suited Katniss fine.

  


“Katniss?”

  


Of course.

  


“Don't you have anything better to do than to bug me?”

  


“Nope.”

  


She sighs.

  


He is just walking around the tree, a question hanging off the edge of his lips. He catches her face in the yellow glow of the porchlight.

  


“What happened to your face?” His hands instinctively reach for her. To inspect the swelling where Lilah's ring caught her cheekbone.

  


“Please, Peeta.” She is horrified at the begging tone that has crept into her voice. And her hand wraps around her mouth before she can do something truly despicable, like start crying in front of him. “Let it go.” She mumbles. He rolls his taut jaw, but nods.

  


“You need ice.”

  


She needs her forest.

  


He runs off before she has a chance to tell him no. She pretends she doesn’t know how he knows so much at tending these kinds of wounds, but she probably knows better than most, Peeta Mellark learned to take a hit before he learned to do anything else.

  


A painful breath passes between them and sails by on the sultry summer breeze.

  


“Can I?” He asks, lifting the fabric.

  


She should say no.

  


His feet inch slightly closer. The toe of his boots are drenched in that red dirt that stains everything, crawls into every corner and grinds itself down into your carpet.

  


“Yeah, Ok.” It comes out as a breath.

  


She watches him warily as he slips closer to her at an insufferably slow rate. Her eyes drift upwards to get a closer look at his face. The slight trace of stubble on his cheeks, darker than his curls with a hint of red. The bridge of his nose tinged pink, like he has had too much sun. The spray of freckles across his cheeks, so light she has never noticed them before.

  


Then there are his eyes, they make the summer sky look garish.

  


The ice hits her skin and she hisses, her feet shuffle backward so suddenly she nearly falls on her ass in the dirt.

  


“Sorry,” She says breathlessly. “The cold.” A stray droplet of cool water runs down the side of her face and drops to the ground between them.

  


He hands her the compress and she fights the urge to take it and climb up the tree behind her to safety, where those cool blue eyes or their kindness can't touch her.

  


“Was it Lilah?”

  


“Does it matter?” She says flatly.

  


After an excruciating moment of silence he shakes his head tiredly.

  


“I guess not.”

  


She turns, expecting those words to be the end of it. The end of everything Peeta Mellark. He should turn and leave her to the quiet stars blinking above her.

  


She sinks down into the grass and leans back against the rough bark of the tree. Pressing the ice against her cheek so hard it’s painful. Then it goes just as numb as the rest of her.

  


So, so slowly, as if she might bolt he slides down the trunk of the tree and sits next to her.

  


“You mind if I sit with you awhile?” He asks.

  


She fights that primal urge inside of her to snap and snarl.

  


“No, I guess not.” She shrugs. Indifferent to him. What a lie. She can feel him all around her, she can smell the cinnamon and salt on his sweat dampened skin as his fingers rest in the dirt a mere breath away from hers. His pinky finger is long and idly she wonders what it would feel like to drag her own fingers down his hand.

  


The thought startles her and she worries he knows somehow, the turn her thoughts have taken. She glances up at him and gives him the barest hint of a smile.

  


And the grin she gets in return is absolutely blinding.

  


It is then she sees Peeta Mellark for what he really is.

  


An unswung ax.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katniss knows the true nature of this district and she will never allow herself the luxury of love. She will never be able to keep a child safe in this world and it is better that they never live than to know this ever present fear that it all could be ripped from you in an instant.
> 
>  
> 
> She has seen both love and death. She has held them in the palm of her hand and looked in on them and she knows. It isn't death that is our downfall. It's love that undoes us.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge shout out to my beautiful wonderful beta W00-ly and to Shannon17 as well both of them are amazing ladies and I wouldn't be able to post a single word without them!

Katniss threads her fingers through the fence as she stares out at the treeline. The towering pines that stand tall over the wavering dead grass. The promise of protection, of food and safety. They seem so far away now, a distant world.

 

For the first time she gets the nagging feeling that Gale was right. They all should have ran for it when they had the chance. Katniss has lived here long enough to feel the shift in the winds.

 

Change is coming.

 

And change always hurts.

 

Always.

 

~~..~~

 

The morning of her birthday dawns in a haze of blue and pink. She lays in her bed for a long time, staring up at slats in the ceiling, watching the light fade from blue to a buttery golden. She rolls over and hikes her blankets up over her shoulder and screws her eyes shut, determined for a few more moments of sleep.

 

Oblivion doesn't come so she picks herself up and carries herself downstairs, even if it is just for Prim's sake. When she finally appears everyone is sitting down to breakfast. Temperance watches her with something like a sad smile. Katniss ignores Lilah and her frown.

 

“Happy Birthday!” Prim squeals and launches herself at Katniss, wrapping her scrawny arms around her sister and squeezing. A smile tugs at her lips.

 

“Hey, thanks duck.”

 

“What did you want to do today?”

 

Katniss swallows a bite of her toast.

 

“Oh, I don't know Prim-” She smiles down at her sister but the food in her mouth might as well be cardboard.

 

“Well, you can start with the shopping list.” Lilah says sharply. Temperance stares down at her tea.

 

They start at the grocers, then the butchers and finally, the bakery. Katniss pauses by the door as Prim presses her face against the windowpane. “Oh Katniss, look at that one!” She points out a cake covered in pink flowers.

 

Katniss hums in agreement but she isn't looking at the cakes, she is watching the boy walking by with the tray of cookies. She catches his eye and he offers her a small smile. She looks down quickly.

 

“Katniss?” Her sister is smiling. A pink edge to her skin.

 

“What?” Katniss doesn't like the edge that has crept into her voice.

 

“Are we going inside?” Her sister seems endlessly amused by something and Katniss can feel her skin turning pink.

 

She doesn't say anything, just stomps inside while her sister cackles.

 

“Wish I knew what was so funny.” Katniss grumbles.

 

“The list says sourdough.” Her sister dismisses, swallowing her smile.

 

“Good morning, Katniss.” How does he do that? She practically jumps out of her skin as he brushes passed her with a smile.

 

“Peeta Mellark.” She says, tilting her chin upward. She hasn't spoken to him since the night Lilah hit her but she has caught his eye through the bakery window several times. She tucks her braid around her shoulder and tries to hide the bruise on her cheekbone where Lilah’s ring caught her skin.

 

“What brings you in today?”

 

“A loaf of sour please.” She mumbles out her eyes hitting the floor hard and fast.

 

Even without looking up she can feel his smile.

 

“A cookie too please!” Prim chirps from behind her. Katniss turns to glare at her sister who sticks her tongue out. “It's your birthday!” She smirks and Katniss doesn't have to look at Peeta to know he has perked with this information, she does however, level her sister with a glare.

 

“It's your birthday?”

 

Someone sighs, she thinks it might be her.

 

“Yes.” She says, not taking her eyes off Prim, who looks pretty pleased with herself.

 

Peeta is at the display case before she can protest, pulling out a delicately frosted cookie. She has never had a whole cookie to herself. When he hands it to her she peels back the wax paper to see the happy little daisy frosted on it peeking up at her.

 

“Happy Birthday Katniss.” His voice is warm and soft, like candlelight. It stills the argument she had brewing in her chest.

 

“Um, thank you.” The words are practically a foreign language to her. She looks up through her eyelashes and smiles. It is a nice cookie. Prim drops some coins on the counter.

 

He hands her the loaf of sourdough and clears his throat. “Hey, uh-”

 

He watches her for awhile, his eyes searching hers. She wonders what he is looking for, what he could possibly see when he looks at her.

 

Katniss can hear the customer behind her get impatient.

 

“What are you doing?” He rushes out.

 

She feels her eyebrows knit together.

 

“For your birthday, I mean-”

 

“Um, nothing.” It isn't a lie, she can't remember ever celebrating her birthday. Before her father died it meant one year closer to the reaping, then it meant more slips in the bowl, more tesserae. What does it mean now?

 

“Well, um, I know about this thing out by the meadow. Just a few people- um-”

 

She wishes he'd just spit it out. The woman behind her grumbles sourly.

 

“Would you want to go?”

 

He is holding his breath. She shifts her weight nervously.

 

“You want me to go with you?” She asks.

 

He smiles crookedly. “If you want.”

 

Everything in her screams no.

 

“Alright.” she breathes, doing her best to remain indifferent.

 

“Peeta!” Its the middle Mellark. Katniss shuffles backward toward the door, nearly running right into Prim. “Mom isn't paying you to flirt.”

 

“Mom isn't paying me at all.” Peeta grumbles but winks at the girls. Katniss feels something new and strange pooling in stomach. Its painful but not in an entirely unpleasant way. “Eight o'clock,” He says. “I'll meet you by the apple tree.”

 

“Okay.”

 

The door shuts behind them as Prim giggles.

 

“What?” Katniss huffs.

 

“Nothing.” Prim says breathlessly.

 

~~..~~

 

When she gets back to the safety of her room she pulls the cookie out from its paper sleeve. Her fingers hover over the frosting but she doesn't dare touch it.

 

It's a lovely thing and someone like her is sure to ruin it.

 

~~..~~

 

She slips out the back door, ignoring the bleets of Lady as she hops the small chicken wire fence that separates the small apothecary garden from the bakery. For a breathless moment she is sure this was some elaborate joke orchestrated by a bored merchant kid but then she sees him waiting under that apple tree.

 

“Hey,” She says, shifting her bag on her shoulder, looking everywhere but him.

 

“Hey, you.” He says, almost dreamily.

 

She feels him looking at her and she slips her braid over her shoulder. She feels so open underneath his stare, like he can see all those open sore parts of her. Those oozing wounds she works so hard to keep hidden. It so easy, to snap at him when he makes her feel like this. So easy for her instinct to be cruel to kick in.

 

She is no better than those wild dogs out beyond the fence.

 

“I didn't know what to wear.” She lets her voice trail off. Truth is she was happy to slip into her old trousers and a t-shirt. She is sick to death of dresses.

 

“You look good, fine, I mean- hold on-” His fingers reach out and run across the back of her fathers leather jacket, straightening the collar. Everything in her goes still like he's the hunter, like she's his pray.

 

She waits for the feeling of skin against hers, the velvet pads of his fingertips. Instead her eyes flit upward and he smiles at her.

 

“There, perfect.” He says.

 

She feels disappointed. She doesn't know why. Swallowing the lump in her throat she motions him to lead.

They walk in silence for awhile, her eyes steadfastly locked on her boots.

 

“So you do this often?” He asks. Her head shoots up to look at him. Hands in pockets, blue eyes flitting to her only to bounce away.

 

“What? Sneak out with merchant boys?”

 

“Just uh, sneak out in general.”

 

“No, not really, just the twice. Do you do this often?”

 

“What? Sneak out with girls?”

 

She hates the way her stomach twists. She swallows and opens her mouth to say something mean, her lips twined into a scowl.

 

She hears it distantly. From the inside of an abandoned warehouse. The strum of a guitar, something she only recognizes because her father had one that was sold for grain and salt. It was a shame too, a beautiful thing as elegant as it was illegal. They crest a hill and she sees the warehouse that has sat dormant at the edge of the meadow for as long as she can remember.

 

“Peeta, what-”

 

“Think you're the only one around here that breaks the rules?”

 

He walks ahead leaving her behind to watch his back as she sticks to the shadows, watching the door of the warehouse uncertainly.

 

He turns around when she doesn't follow. “You coming?” She looks back at the road longingly before reluctantly stepping out of the shadows. She ignores how he slides the heavy door open with ease and steps passed him into the flickering light. She is immediately choked by the smell of smoke and liquor.

 

“Is that _Katniss Everdeen_?” Its Delly Cartwright, the perpetually cheerful shoemakers daughter. She stumbles up to Peeta and wraps her arms around his waist. “How did you convince Katniss Everdeen to come to my party?” Delly fixes her glassy eyes on Katniss and smiles.

 

“Hello, _Katniss Everdeen_.” All her words slur into a slush of vowels and consonants. Katniss wrinkles her nose at the liquor fumes that suddenly invade her senses.

 

“Is she drunk?” Katniss asks Peeta.

 

“I think she may have had a little too much white liquor. You okay, Dells?” Delly starts to list over and grabs on to Peeta.

 

“Right as the rain.” She says with a affectionate smile. Katniss ignores the tugging deep in her stomach, something blistering snaking its way through her veins. She isn't quite sure what it means but she doesn't like it.

 

So when Madge Undersee shows up she sticks to her like glue and does her best to ignore the crowd of kids by the dying glow of a fire pit made from grates and an old barrel. They look at her like she is an oddity from the capitol or a horse with two heads.

 

“What is their problem?” Katniss finally spits, leaning her back up against the wall, upsetting the coal dust and sending it drifting up through the air.

 

“Everyone is just-” Madge chooses her words carefully. “Surprised.” She seems to settle on, taking a swig from the old jar she has filled with white liquor.

 

“Surprised at what?” Katniss growls.

 

“That your even here.” Madge winces as Katniss narrows her eyes. “Well, you aren't exactly social-” Her voice trails off.

 

So they thought she was what exactly?

 

Madge bites her lip and looks away.

 

“Everyone is just intimidated, I think.” Madge says. “I mean your _Katniss Everdeen_.”

 

“Why does everyone keep saying my name like that?” Katniss sneers.

 

“Have you ever even had white liquor?” Madge asks with a raised eyebrow.

 

Her life didn't leave a whole lot of room for things like parties and friends and sure she wasn't all smiles but she liked to have fun, with Prim. Madge holds out her glass and Katniss stares at it. She wasn't a prude and she would prove it.

 

She slams back the white liquor and it burns down her throat in a way that isn't entirely unpleasant. She catches Peeta watching her from across the room and asks for another. Then one more. Madge tells her to slow down but Katniss doesn't listen. As usual. She likes the way it burns down her esophagus and puddles like fire in her stomach. She likes the way that it seems to numb the places it touches.

 

Katniss hangs in the shadows as she watches the kids group around the boy with the guitar. They sway along with the music.

 

“Hey.” Peeta says.

 

She gives him a sideways glance and hides her smile behind her cup. “Hey,” She says simply, shifting her weight from foot to foot and tucking her hair behind her ear.

 

He leans back next to her and watches the crowd of kids dancing.

“So, um, did you want to dance?” Peeta rushes out.

 

She turns and looks at him, rattled and unsure. She can't stop her abrupt smile as she looks away anxiously hoping he didn't see.

 

“I, um-” she stumbles over her words and she suddenly wishes the ground would swallow her whole. Staring helplessly at the crowd.

 

“Not one for crowds?” He asks and she shakes her head.

 

“Well, we could dance here.” His voice is hesitant. How does he just know? Its like he can see all those secret little things that have buried themselves so deep inside of her she didn't even know about them herself. Still, she doesn't stop him when he gently curls his hand on her hip. In fact, she inches closer to him and gently inhales the intoxicating scent of his soap, crisp and clean with something spicy like cinnamon but not quite. A puzzle to be worked out. Just like him.

 

His arms are solid and corded with years of lifting those heavy flour bags. Its almost painful how steady they are. How is that possible in a world so out of control?

 

The liquor goes to her head and when he spins her around and away from him, its like the whole world slants and she stumbles, just slightly.

 

“Sorry,” He says with a lopsided grin. “I guess I'm a better baker than I am a dancer.”

 

The warmth that pools in her stomach suddenly feels like poison and she jerks away from him. Because she remembers what Peeta really is. She remembers how utterly insidious. He could absolutely decimate her with a well placed smile.

 

She mumbles an excuse and goes to find Madge.

 

She will never be a victim to charm. His or anyone else's.

  


The world becomes blurry and dull, Katniss isn't sure when it happened. One moment she is taking shots with a girl she only vaguely recognizes, the next she is sitting by the fire with her eyes screwed shut, begging the world to stop spinning.

 

Just stop.

 

She falls to her knees in the dirt and listens to the twang of the guitar. Where had a merchant kid even found something like that? He could be shot if the peacekeepers ever found it and for what? Music? He might as well be hiding illegal ribbons. They rank about the same in terms of usefulness. That guitar won't put food on the table. It does nothing to help you survive.

 

“You okay, Katniss?” It's Peeta. Her heavy eyelids lift and she tries to speak but the world tilts viciously and she rolls onto her side to keep her head still. If only she could keep her head still she wouldn't be sick.

 

Voices crawl inside her head, muted and rhythmic and far away.

 

“Can you get up?” Madge asks.

 

She hums.

 

“Katniss, help me out here.” That is Peeta. Her arm is slung over his shoulders. She leans against him, head resting against his shoulder. “I think I might need to carry her.”

 

Those words snap her awake. Her head lolls but she forces herself up.

 

“I can walk.”

 

“You can't walk.” An edge of exasperation has seeped into his voice. “You can’t even stand.”

 

He lifts her up.

 

“Put me down.” She shoots.

 

She hears him sigh in her ear.

 

“Fine.”

 

He sets her on the ground. She shoves away from him. No one would ever tell her what she can and can't do least of all Peeta Mellark. She manages a few staggering steps before the world pitches and she stumbles toward the cement floor.

 

He catches her.

 

“Whoa there,” He lifts her up and she doesn't have the energy to battle him. She just shuts her eyes and tangles her fingers in his shirt. Feeling a little less sick as the cool night air brushes her sweat dampened skin.

 

“So, did you have a good birthday Katniss?” Peeta asks, she feels his hand brush her bangs back out of her face. His touch is velvet, his skin is cool against her forehead. She thinks she makes a noise from somewhere in the back of her throat.

 

He chuckles and the vibrations run through her like electricity. She is floating. She is misplaced. Her eyes open to the dusting of stars above her.

 

“I liked the liquor.” the words tumble out of her mouth before she can stop them.

 

“Katniss?” His voice is quiet, timid.

 

“What?” Her fingers twist his shirt limply.

 

“I'm sorry, about your Mom.” The words wind themselves around her like smoke. Her head lolls against his shoulder like a broken flower. It is the first time anyone has expressed anything of the sort toward Katniss herself. Something inside of her curls, like a paper under flames.

 

“Don't be.” Her voice sticks to the back of her throat. Her eyes are too heavy. She lets them slide shut. “She did it to herself.”

 

“Still,” He says, almost to himself. “Someone should say it.”

 

She pries her eyes open to look at him. He looks both sad and worried, his eyes just inches from hers.

 

“Why?” He seems suprised by her voice and he stops moving. She thinks he is going to say something profound or maybe something fierce. Instead he starts walking again.

 

“Close your eyes Katniss. We’ll be home soon.”

 

And she closes her eyes and really believes that she will be home soon. Imagining the place that existed once but is just a bitter sore memory now. A place her father still sings by the fire. A place where her mother dances with her in the candlelight of the kitchen. When he sets her down in the yard of the Apothecary she could cry.

 

She vomits instead.

 

“Lovely.” He says as her stomach heaves the remnants of her dinner all over his shoes. He doesn't seem angry or annoyed. He just pushes the hair out of her face as her stomach lurches the last bit of bile up her raw throat.

 

Peeta makes soft, soothing noises from the back of his throat and rubs soft circles in her back. She isn't sure what she did to deserve his kindness but she will accept it because it has been so long since someone has touched her like this.

 

Like she matters.

 

She falls asleep right there under the swaying branches of the birch tree in the yard, listening to the soft sandpaper cadence of his voice as he tells her a story she can't really piece together. But that feeling is back, the one where she is safely tucked in her mother's arms while her father's voice wraps around her like a blanket.

  


He shakes her awake when the first blue light of morning is cresting the horizon. She is horrified to find her head had slumped against his shoulder and her mortification makes her blood hot.

 

“Why didn't you wake me?” She snaps.

 

“You don't scowl so much in your sleep.” He shrugs as she jolts away from him like he has burned her. “You look nice.” He says with a kind smile. She suddenly feels the need to play with her rats nest of a braid.

 

“Come on.” He stands and offers her a hand. “Let’s get you to bed.” She takes his hand reluctantly and lets him drag her up.

She ignores the pounding of her head as she climbs the tree up to her room and slips inside, being careful not to make any noise.

 

She turns around and waves at Peeta. In the early morning sunbeams Peeta looks like he is made of light himself. Pale and buttery and golden. Decadent and rich and utterly forbidden to someone like her.

 

So alluring when she is surrounded by darkness.

 

“Peeta!” She calls out before she can stop herself. She allows herself a beat of silence to be sure that no one woke from the sound of her voice, frantic and strangled.

 

“Yeah?” He says as loud as dares. She flounders, not sure exactly what she meant to say to him.

 

“Get home safe.” She groans at her choice of words.

 

He laughs, his hand clawing at the back of his neck.

 

“Katniss, I live next door.”

 

She feels silly and tired, drunk on something entirely different than white liquor. Something like candlelight.

 

“Still-” She trails off.

 

“I will then.” He says softly.

 

She watches as he crosses the yard and disappears from sight.

 

She waits until he is gone, then she presses her hands to her cheeks.

 

And smiles.

 

~~..~~

 

Katniss drags the washtub out to the yard on Sunday morning and fills it with water and lye. Prim watches as Katniss scrubs their school clothes, their reaping dresses and hangs them out on the line to dry in the summer breeze.

 

Lilah has a woman that comes once a week to do their cleaning but Katniss won't allow her to touch anything of theirs. She will not owe the Warrens more than she absolutely has to. She will not be a rabbit caught in a snare. She will not be a victim of circumstance.

 

“Katniss it's so hot, come up and have some tea.” Prim drawls from the shade of the porch. Katniss just blows her bangs from her sweat soaked forehead.

 

“I'm fine, Little Duck, drink your tea.” She shields her face from the sun with her hand as a smile crawls up her face at the sight of her sister in her lace dress and new sun hat.

 

That's when the screen door snaps behind him and Katniss is caught.

 

Peeta crosses his yard with garbage for the bins, his apron slung across his shoulder.

 

She has been studiously avoiding him since her birthday and she tells herself it is because she is embarrassed at acting like such a fool. She tells herself It isn't the way he smiled at her or the way his fingers felt against the feverish flesh of her cheek. Tender and warm.

 

Tender. Katniss didn't think there was anything left that was tender. She had thought that word died out before the dark days, Faded to coal dust and floated away on the southernly winds.

 

She shifts her weight from foot to foot and watches him from the corner of her eye as he sets the bags into the garbage, carefully rearranging it so a loaf of stale bread is sitting just under the lid. He turns back around, his gaze fixed firmly forward until he passes Katniss, then his lips upturn, just slightly, as if they just cannot help themselves.

 

“Good Afternoon, Miss Everdeen.” He says and it immediately infuses her with warmth from the top of her head straight to her toes.

 

She suddenly is too aware of what she must look like. Her hair, hastily braided and her dress is patched and ill fitting. She stands barefoot in the grass with her arms red from the lye.

 

“Mr. Mellark.” She says, her tone is smart and he smiles at her crookedly.It is only after he has shut the door that she releases the breath she hadn't realized she was holding and her muscles unclench.

 

She is sure that of every person in Panem, Peeta Mellark is the most insufferable.

 

She stomps up the stairs.Prim cackles behind her hand.

 

“What?” Katniss grumbles from the doorway.

 

“Nothing.” Prim says with a smirk. When Katniss glares at her as she hides behind her glass.

 

~~..~~

 

Prim turns twelve.

 

Katniss watches Buttercup stalk a dragonfly in the yard.

 

The reaping hangs above her like a guillotine. 

 

~~..~~

  


She hides.

 

Gale seeks.

 

~~..~~

 

He finds her as she climbs up the dusty stairs to the front of the apothecary doors.

 

“Your house is boarded up.” His voice is slicing, accusing. Gale always has been all sharp edges and today is no exception. She shrinks under her gaze.

 

“It ain't my house no more.” She says, fingering the material of her dress. She feels so open and exposed under the slits of his eyes.

 

“I like your dress.” He sniffs, his finger wiping at his nose as he looks her over. His eyes rake over her and she slinks back to the shadow of the building. He has this way of making her feel two inches tall. “It looks expensive.”

  
  


“It's silk.” She snaps.

 

His lips tilt upward, just slightly.

 

“Sure is pretty.” He says wryly.

 

“Gale-” Her voice is tired.

 

“So this is it then?” He questions. He walks closer to her. He doesn't kick up any dust when he walks, he doesn't make a sound. As deadly in the districts as he is among the trees. “You live in town now?”

 

Why does this sound like the end?

 

Does he really hate people from the town that much? Did he forget it was just as much a part of Katniss as the Seam? Would the shade of her skin protect her?

 

It never did before.

 

“It isn't like I had a choice Gale.”

 

“You ain't been out in the woods.” The words feel like a noose tightening around her neck.

 

“No.” She doesn't dare tell him about the rabbit, the slap, the night out under the stars. She definitely doesn't tell him about Peeta Mellark.

 

Gale isn't necessarily unkind. He just has a lot of opinions.

 

“Too good for me now?”

 

This prickles her skin.

 

“How dare you Gale Hawthorne,” She snarls, stomping down the steps to face him directly. He is practically a foot taller than her and she has to step back to glare into his eyes. “I got Prim to worry about. At least you have your Mama, I don't have anybody else and Prim needs new shoes before school. You have no idea-”

 

His hands grip her face and pull her closer. His fingers lock in her hair and hold her in place. His lips descend on her and they taste like coal dust, ashes and sweat. She stands there for a moment, slack jawed and burning red as his fingers skate there way down to her shoulder.

 

Finally she shoves him backward.

 

He stares at her like she is glass, his eyes like charcoal. He pulls his cap off his head and scratches the back of his neck. There is coal dust embedded in his nails, the plains of his face, the hollow of his collarbone. It never mattered how much he scrubbed himself, the soot never comes clean.

 

“I could take you out of here, Katniss.” He says desperately.

 

Katniss is vaguely aware of the merchant couple stopped in the road, watching them unabashed. She rolls her eyes and grabs Gale, dragging him into the shadow of the alleyway.

 

“Gale-”

 

“I could, you and Prim can come live with us. I'll start in the mines in a few weeks, you can hunt-”

 

“Gale-”

 

“It'll work Catnip.”

 

The sound of her nickname on his tongue nearly dissolves her.

 

“How?”

 

She sounds like her old Seam self. Her voice is hard and practical.

 

“You still gotta a family of five to feed. You're barely making it now.” His hands reach out and take her face, gently, like a lover.

 

“It won't work, Gale.”

 

He looks into her eyes, steel and slate.

 

“I know it won't be easy but Catnip-”

 

She puts her hand on his and gently pries herself away from his grasp. He sees the gesture for what it is.

 

“Katniss-”

 

She knows this is the death of them. The two sunburned children out in the woods. She can see it in his eyes. He won't give her up easily, he'll lock his teeth into her and twist and pull until she relents. She has to hold strong.

 

“I'm sorry Gale.” She tries to say it gently.

 

And she can feel him watching her as she walks away from him, so she holds her hand against her lips to stifle the sobs.

 

He doesn't chase her.

 

She wipes her eyes, straightens her spine and slips through the door just as she is swallowing down the taste of her own tears on her lips.

 

Lilah stands there. Her hands on her hips. Her eyebrows practically painted together.

 

“That boy stays in the Seam where he belongs, little girl. You hearing me?”

 

Katniss locks her jaw.

 

“This family can not afford any more rumors.” Katniss nods stiffly. There is an uneasy moment of silence between them and then Katniss sees it flash in Lilahs eyes, but by that time it is too late to do anything.

 

Lilah strikes out like a viper, grabbing Katniss by her arm and flinging her toward the stairs. “Get upstairs to your room and don't you dare come out until I get you.”

 

Katniss climbs the narrow staircase and slips into her room. The heat is stifling so she shoves her window upward and there is just enough room to climb up and rest on the ledge. She hangs her feet out the window.

 

She sighs, her whole body feels heavy and tired

 

That is when she sees two of the three Mellark boys out in the alley with a group of young merchant kids, kicking around a ball.

 

She watches him, of course she does, because it feels like since he tossed her the bread that is all she's done. He is sweat soaked and sun drunk and he always makes sure the littlest one gets a turn with the ball and this makes her smile.

 

She catches his eye.

 

He dances a little and she can help the smile that creeps its way up her face.

 

He really is an awful dancer.

 

He smiles back at her like this was his plan all along.

 

She swivels and drops back down onto the ground. As she turns on her heel to shut the window he catches her eye one last time, he clutches at his heart with his hand and winks at her. She shrugs her shoulders and shuts her window with finality.

 

Let him figure out what that means.

 

And then like a splash of cold water she remembers.

 

She shouldn't want him to try and figure anything about her out.

  


~~..~~

  


Lilah is forced to let Katniss out of her cage.

 

The reaping is in a few days and Prim's shoes have holes.

 

The bell above the door jingles and Katniss inhales. She loves the smell of the shoe shop, it smells like leather and glue and fresh rubber.

 

Delly says she'll be right with them from somewhere in the back. There are giggles, both male and female. Katniss studies a shoe on a display. Nice, sturdy boots.

 

“Oh, Hello Katniss.” Delly says cheerfully as she rounds the corner with Peeta hot on her heels. They both are laughing and something deep inside Katniss wilts at the sight of them together. The skin on Delly's chest is flushed, so are her cheeks and her lips are swollen and its at that moment Katniss is certain that Peeta Mellark was kissing Delly in the back of the shoe shop and she doesn't care.

 

She shouldn't care.

 

She turns on her heels.

 

“Come on Prim.” Her voice is flat and blank. Before Prim has a chance to protest they are back out the door and on the walkway. Prim looking back at the store behind them and Katniss is heaving in air like its going out of style

 

“What was that all about?” Prim asks with a sly smile.

 

“Nothing.”

 

“Katniss Everdeen do you have a crush?”

 

What a stupid word, crush. Its childish and silly and useless, especially when there are better things you could be doing, like making sure that you don't starve to death. Katniss is sure it is anything but a crush.

 

No, It isn't a crush and the sooner she is rid of Peeta Mellark the better.

 

She just needs to say thank you.

 

Then he'll be out of her life forever.

 

~~..~~

 

She tries to think of a way to say it without actually saying it. Hunting is out and it is a pity because its the only thing she is good at. She spends most of her time trying to think of something he'd want. She tries to notice things about him. When Temperance goes to the bakery Katniss comes and lingers at the back, making a show of not actually looking at him.

 

One morning she goes out to feed the chickens and sees him out on the porch, feet propped up on the railing and an old ledger in his lap. She slips forward on silent feet to see what exactly it is he is doing.

 

He's drawing.

 

She can't stop the smile that spreads across her face.

 

Finally, something she can work with.

 

~~..~~

 

After a long night the sky is finally streaked in pink. Katniss tucks her braid up in her knitted cap and slips out of her window and down the tree. Almost all of the merchant section is still asleep and no one is out to see Katniss slipping down the sidewalk and into the seam.

 

She has to move fast.

 

She ducks down alleyways and hops over fences taking a route as old as time. She arrives just as they are sliding the large door open to the Hob. It might be early but Greasy Sae already has a pot of stew on her worn out stove. The woman is ancient but a fixture at the black market. Her swollen hands are stirring a pot of soup when she spots Katniss making a beeline for her stall. She gives Katniss a toothless smile that Katniss can't help but return.

 

“Hey there Girlie,” The old woman says fondly. “Its been awhile since we seen you, thought you mighta forgotten old Sae.”

 

“I'd never forget you Sae, you're the only one that buys my wild dog.”

 

“Speaking of Child, we ain't had much meat around here.”

 

Katniss sours immediately.

 

“You got Gale.”

 

“Yeah, well, he's a piss poor shot.” Sae says with a wink.

 

Katniss finds a vendor with paper. It isn't great paper, you can still see splinters of wood in it but it's paper all the same and its never been touched by a pen or a pencil or anyone else but Peeta Mellark.

 

She wraps it carefully in wax paper to keep the coal dust away and tucks it in her desk, waiting for the right moment to give it to him. Sometime after the reaping she decides. When they are both safe.

 

If they are both safe.

 

~~..~~

 

The day before the reaping Katniss and Prim sit out in the hot sun. Katniss runs her fingers through Prims hair and hums the valley song, soft and low into the little girls ear. Prim makes flower chains with quick and clever fingers. She tucks them into Katniss's hair and loops them around her neck.

 

They fall onto their backs, drowsy from the sun and Katniss tells Prim every dumb joke she has ever heard just to listen to her laugh. She soaks in the sound, you know, just in case.

 

“Katniss?” Prim says as they lay under the shade of the apple tree.

 

“Hmmmm Prim?” She says softly, her eyes shut against the sun.

 

“What will you do if it's me?”

 

Katniss rolls onto her side and looks at her sister. Her sweet little sister, afraid of spiders. She could never tell her that she’d have to volunteer. She could never put that weight on her little sisters shoulders.

 

“It won't be you, Prim.” Katniss says, tucking a strand of her sisters hair away from her face and wiping a stray bit of dirt off her sisters cheek.

 

“It could be.”

 

“It won't, your name is in there once.”

 

“How many times for you Katniss?”

 

“Twenty.” the number tastes like offal in her mouth.

 

What would Prim do if she was reaped?

 

Prim has tears clinging to her lashes.

 

“Oh Prim, don't cry.” Katniss says, melting at the sight of her little sister, owl eyed and covered in tiny yellow flowers.

 

She shuts her eyes and does that thing she always swore she'd never do.

 

She asks whoever might be listening for a favor.

 

Not Prim.

 

Please.

 

~~..~~

 

Sometime in the night Prim crawls into bed with Katniss.

 

“I miss mom.” Prim whispers tearfully.

 

“I know, Little Duck.” Katniss says, rubbing soft circles on her sisters back.

 

The night goes on forever.

 

Until it doesn't.

 

~~..~~

 

The day of the reaping dawns eventually and Katniss washes the salt from her skin in the tiny bathroom the whole family shares. She dresses in a smart green dress that has hand me down lace on the collar and hem. Prim is pretty as a dewdrop in lavender and Katniss brushes her hair for one hundred strokes until her sisters hair falls in a glossy curtain down her back.

 

Katniss braids her own hair as she watches the children begin to collect in pools in the square.

 

A knock.

 

“Do you girls need any help?”

 

“We're fine.” Katniss says, gritting her teeth. Temperance sighs and Katniss knows she isn't being fair but she can't help it. When Temperance speaks Katniss hears her mother and as much as she would never admit it to anyone it stings like salt in a wound.

 

“May the odds be.” Temperance says and the door shuts quietly behind her.

 

~~..~~

  


A pinprick.

 

Blood smeared on paper, bleached bone white in the blistering sun.

 

All Katniss can hear is her sisters heavy breathing.

 

Her desperate heave of air.

 

“Prim, It won't be you.” Katniss soothes but she can't bring herself to smile at her sister. Not on reaping day.

 

They don't discuss Katniss. Her odds have never been that great.

 

~~..~~

 

Katniss sees Primrose to the group of twelve year olds and makes her way toward the front. Her feet flounder for a moment as she wonders who to stand by. She is too dark-skinned to be merchant and too merchant to be seam.

 

Finally she settles on standing with Leevy Clearwater, her old neighbor from the seam. Her eyes search the boys and she sees Gale towering over the other eighteen year olds.

 

She nods at him and his eyes look away.

 

May the odds be in their favor.

 

The treaty of treason. Haymitch falls off the stage. Katniss can't breath. She can't hear anything over the pounding of her blood in her ears.

 

Not her.

 

Please.

 

Does everyone beg before death?

 

Not her.

 

Not Prim.

 

“Ladies first.”

 

Katniss grits her teeth as she squeezes her eyes shut and focuses on heaving in what little air she can.

 

“Leevy Clearwater.”

 

Katniss jolts away from Leevy as if the peacekeepers might grab the first dark haired girl they come across. When the dust settles Katniss sees that everyone else has done the same. Leevy stands alone in the dust her chest heaving and tears tracing their way down her dusky skin.

 

Katniss looks up at the girl and for one long, agonizing moment they stand there stock still and saucer eyed.

 

Katniss wants to say something to the girl but what is there to say?

 

Been real nice knowing you?

 

The peacekeepers drag Leevy up to the stage as her mother wails somewhere in the distance. She looks like a bride in her white dress, ascending up to the alter.

 

Another lamb, ripe and ready.

 

“And now for the boys.” Effie trills and Katniss digs her fingernails into the pillowy flesh of her sweaty palms.

 

Her eyes find Gale.

 

How many slips for him?

 

Forty two.

 

His eyes narrow in her direction.

 

Odds aren't exactly in his favor, either.

 

Her eyes slip over to Peeta his hair gleaming in the unforgiving glare of the sun. She tries to smile at him. Something she hopes is warm and comforting. He winks at her and even here, even now, standing in the stranglehold of the Capitol, she feels her lips upturn, just slightly.

In the end a twelve year old from the seam is offered up. A little boy whose name Katniss forgets as soon as it is uttered. It's cold and cruel but it's the way of things.

 

It doesn't matter what his name is.

 

Dead is dead no matter what you call it.

 

~~..~~

 

Katniss hugs Prim hard, relief flooding her the second her arms go around the little girl. It wasn't them. They are safe for another year. Then she feels guilty because their safety always means someone else is going to die.

 

That is just how it works.

 

~~..~~

 

Katniss lies on her back, her hair spilled in the dirt and the grass stuck to her legs. She stares up at the leaves as they sway gently in the summer breeze.

 

“Hi, Katniss.”

 

“Hi, Peeta.”

 

“Can I sit with you?”

 

She can think of a thousand reasons why she should send him away. None of them seem to matter. “Alright, I guess.”

 

He sinks down in the grass next to her.

 

“Happy hunger games.” She says drolly.

 

He laughs woodenly.

 

She rolls over to face him. He's still in his reaping clothes, a plain button up and well worn tan trousers. His hair is a mess, like he has run his hands through it a thousand times. She looks up at him and meets his eyes, so quick it feels violent. She could live at the edge of her skin under that color forever. She drops the leaf she has been worrying between her fingers, startled.

 

He startles her.

  


She thinks this is the most terrifying thing about him.

 

“I’m happy it wasn’t you.”

 

He leans back, his head just inches from hers. They both stare up at the night sky.

 

“I’m happy it wasn’t you, too.” He echoes.

 

Their hands are brushing. Her skin hums.

 

She smiles at the stars because she isn’t brave enough to face him.

 

~~..~~

 

The little boy dies on the first day of the games. A day dark with summer storms.

 

A warehouse in the seam goes up in flames.

 

Katniss watches the distant flames lick the purple sky. Her fingers dig into the railing. She listens to the people dart and shout with pails of water and blankets.

 

Lightning.

 

She counts in her head like her mother taught her.

 

One.

 

Two.

 

Three.

 

Thunder.

 

~~..~~

 

Four miners from the seam are hung two days later. Every citizen in twelve is corralled into the square and forced to watch the spectacle. They have black bags over their heads and Katniss feels panic welling inside of her in puddles and leaking its way into her bloodstream.

 

Not Gale.

 

Please, not Gale.

 

They drop and their legs swing freely.

 

She remembers the old song her father used to sing.

 

One by one the legs stop swinging.

 

Their bodies hang there for days, collecting flies, reminding Katniss of her mother. She keeps her eyes trained forward as they hang from the side of the justice building. She barely breathes until she catches sight of Gale one afternoon, heading to the mines. He still isn't talking to her but she is so relieved she doesn't care. All she can do is be grateful he is still alive.

 

For this moment she has her hunting partner back. Then he is swallowed by the crowd and the moment is gone and she heads toward the school to sign Prim and herself back up for another year.

 

Life goes on, whether you want it to or not.

 

~~..~~

 

Leevy shows she is oddly resourceful for a scrawny girl from twelve. All the good it does her in the end. The boy from two finds her and Katniss hides her sister from the worst of it. He plays with Leevy like she is a toy. When he snaps her neck it feels like a relief.

~~..~~

It isn’t a surprise when the boy from two wins.

Katniss watches from the kitchen table as he accepts his crown.

She feels sick.

 

~~..~~

She strikes an odd routine with Peeta.

 

He skates around her at school, trying to catch her eye while she studiously avoids him. They go home to their respective houses but come nightfall they end up in the backyard until curfew. Sometimes they speak, more often they don't. Usually they just sit in silence, both filling a primal need for company. It's nothing more.

 

Katniss repeats it over and over again.

 

It's nothing.

 

Because he is just being nice to her. He is with Delly and she doesn't care.

 

Because Katniss knows the true nature of this district and she will never allow herself the luxury of love. She will never be able to keep a child safe in this world and it is better that they never live than to know this ever present fear that it all could be ripped from you in an instant.

 

She has seen both love and death. She has held them in the palm of her hand and looked in on them and she knows. It isn't death that is our downfall. It's love that undoes us.

 

~~..~~

 

The first of the leaves are starting to fall. It is still stifling outside but the end is finally in sight and Katniss is excited for the promise of a reprieve from the unforgiving heat. On this particular morning she is late. She tells Prim to go on ahead and she dresses quickly, brushes through her hair and braids it hastily.

 

She slides more than runs down the stairs and grabs an apple from the bowl on the table.

 

“Katniss!” Lilahs voice is like water dripping or nails against a chalk board. Katniss still slides to a stop just shy of the door, just shy of freedom.

 

“You left your towel on the bathroom floor again.”

 

Katniss glares at the floor. She can't stand looking at the woman.

 

“I shouldn't have to repeat myself, young lady.”

 

She never calls Katniss by name. It is always young lady or child or girl. Katniss can feel it grate against her nerves. She clenches her jaw shut. Biting her tongue so hard she tastes blood.

 

“Maybe this is how they keep in the seam but around here I keep a tidy house.”

 

Katniss rolls her eyes before she can stop herself.

 

She doesn't see it coming and it pisses her off. All those years hunting have honed her senses but she doesn't see Lilah strike out yanking Katniss across the room and pinning her hand to her the table. The vase is heavy glass and it smashes against her fingers with a dull thud.

 

She can't help the cry that wrenches out from between her teeth. It doesn't matter, there is no one else left in the house to hear it.

 

Lilah has her lips inches from her ear. Katniss cringes away from her hot breath fanning the shell of her ear.

 

“You look like him.”

 

Lilah leaves Katniss cradling her hand to her stomach.

 

Breathe.

 

It's a demand to her lungs.

 

She inhales. She exhales.

 

Move.

 

She picks up her bag from where it fell and flexes her hand. Black and blue is already blooming under her skin. Pain lances up her arm so quickly white spots dance behind her eyes. She can’t help the small whine that leaks from between her lips as she waits for the world to come back into focus. She takes a shaky breath and slips out the door and down the steps, tucking her hand in her pocket and out of sight.

 

“You're late.” He smiles at her.

 

“So are you.” She snarls at Peeta.

 

“A little snappy this morning are we?” He asks.

 

“Just not really in the mood for bullshit.” She grumbles under her breath.

 

“Oh, come on now.” He says with a smirk. “What did I do to deserve that?”

 

Nothing.

 

He did nothing to deserve it and still she is cruel because that is who she is at her core. You can take the girl out of the forest but you can't take the killer out of her. It is in the pores of her skin, buried deep in her black, thrumming heart.

 

She almost forgot Peeta has his own arsenal but he smiles at her gently and she remembers he is far more deadly than she ever gave him credit for. She has to reach for her arrow. He was born with his.

 

“Sorry,” She says. Willing him to know. To know that it hurts. To make it better.

 

He shrugs as if it is no concern to him. He asks her if she wants to walk with him and she shakes her head. She watches him walk until he rounds the corner and out of sight. Only then does she take a step.

 

She notices it suddenly, like a sunrise.

 

Dozens of dandelions dot the yard, they have grown up bright and happy as you please. When did that happen? Have they always been there? Is she only noticing them now? They aren’t even in season. She turns in a slow circle remembering that bright spring morning. The moment she realized that they would survive.

 

She forces herself to remember it now.

 

No matter what, she will always survive.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She wanted to feel him against her, breathing and alive. So she could mimic, like a mockingjay, the way she is supposed to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need to thank my beautiful ladies!
> 
> Savvylark, Shannon17 and w00ly. They are the best cheerleaders, beta's and friends a girl could ask for. They keep the Everlark alive in my heart. All mistakes are mine, they are perfect!

Katniss tells her little sister she slammed a door on her hand. It's the easiest explanation as to why her hand is nearly doubled in size and black and blue. Prim doesn't question it either, just hands her sister an ice pack and tells her to be more careful next time.

 

Katniss takes the already melting pack and sits outside on the porch to watch the leaves flutter to the ground.

 

This is the first fall she hasn't felt pure panic straight to the marrow of her bones. The first fall where she hasn't felt winters cold breath on the back of her neck and starvation nipping at her heels. She would take it though, she would take the yawning emptiness in her stomach if it meant Prim would stop crying out for their mother in the middle of the night.

 

The bakery door slams and Katniss startles, dropping the pack on the dusty steps.

 

Peeta crosses the yard with a loaf of bread wrapped in paper. He hasn't noticed her sitting there yet and she uses her years of practice to make herself still and small on the steps, scarcely breathing as she watches him place the bread on top of the garbage bin lid.

 

He walks slowly and almost as soon as his back is turned the girl creeps up. She is slight and dark as any other girl in the Seam but Katniss would never be able to forget that face, not as long as she lives because she was there on that street that day. As the cart pulled her mother up the hill and out of sight, lifting her tiny fingers up toward the sky.

 

Raven.

 

A name that suits her in this moment, with her tiny eyebrows knitted together as she slips silently toward the garbage bin, tucking the bread under her arm and practically flying away. Dust flying up from under her feet as she disappears toward the Seam.

 

Katniss watches as Peeta smiles toward the place where the little girl just stood. It looks sad as he turns back toward the bakery.

 

She wants to call out to him.

 

Instead she watches the door shut behind him and ignores the feeling that she was never special to him at all. He would help any one, it is just who he is.

 

~~..~~

 

Katniss paces the fence on her way home from school. There are apple trees sagging with fruit just beyond the fence but not quite within reach. Free food just left to rot on the ground. She hikes her bag up on her shoulder and is about to turn to leave when she catches him walking at the edge of the treeline. The bag on his shoulder bulges with game. The wind whispers her hair around her face and she tucks it back.

 

He has caught sight of her too and stands like a startled deer in the middle of the field of wavering grass. His hair is getting long. She lifts her hand in greeting and he narrows his eyes at her. She flinches at the lack of feeling she finds in his eyes. Has it always been so easy for Gale? To cut ties with human beings? To forget but never forgive?

 

She turns and walks away.

 

~~..~~

 

She can't hide the bruise from Peeta. His eyes are sharp as a hawk and narrow immediately in on it as she tucks her hand behind her back and stifle a  groan.

 

They are standing in the middle of the bakery. Temperance is busy looking at the display case and doesn't pay any attention to her niece or the boy who puts his hand on her elbow and squeezes gently.

 

She doesn't speak.

 

What is there to say?

 

~~..~~

  


The sky is darkening by the day and though it is still sticky out the sky seems to hang heavy with rain. Temperance complains that her leg is aching her and that means rain.

 

“What happened to your leg?” Katniss asks her bluntly.

 

Temperance stares out the window, her green eye is bright against the dull gray wallpaper. The district is all around them, bustling and jostling and laughing. Temperance is still as a statue.

 

“What does it matter now?” Her voice is bitter and flat.

 

“Did she do it you?” Katniss asks, her voice wavering. She isn't sure she wants to know. Temperance laughs but there is no mirth in her eyes. Temperance ignores the question completely and is silent so long Katniss is sure she has been dismissed.

 

“I always liked your Dad,” She finally says her lips are a thin, white line.

 

Suddenly it is like all the air has been sucked out of the room and Katniss grips the side of her chair to steady herself. She has an image of her father in her head, bow in hand as he walks the field. He seems so big to Katniss.

 

Out in the woods he looked invincible.

 

“He always was so kind,” Temperance doesn't say it to Katniss, she says it to the wall. “It's a hard thing to find in this world. Your Mom knew, when you find someone like that you hold onto them.”

 

~~..~~

  


“Do you want to go for a walk?” She blurts as Peeta sits next to her underneath the shade of the tree. He looks as startled as she feels, his mouth flounders as he searches her eyes. She doesn't give him a chance to answer she just grabs his hand and starts to walk, desperate to escape the confines of the district, but since she can't do that, escaping the yard will have to be good enough.

 

“It's almost curfew,” Peeta says, his voice trailing as he catches sight of her face. She must look wild and desperate because he stops and then he reaches out and takes her hand.

 

The skin of his palm is rougher than she thought it would be. Suddenly she doesn't know where this lump in her throat has come from. She fears she will cry, so she leads him away from the yard and he doesn't raise a fuss when she takes him to the meadow, to lean against a different tree and stare out at the woods that offer so much freedom and feel so far away.

 

And then she pulls him against her and in the dying light of the first day of fall, she dances with her head pressed against his chest.

 

His arm wraps around her waist, warm and steady and when she peeks up at him he is staring out across the meadow to the fence. She doesn’t even mind when he steps on her toes.

 

“What are you thinking?” She asks him.

 

He is quiet a long time, then he shakes his head as if to clear it. His mouth opens but he doesn't get a chance to say whatever is on his mind. They hear it in the distance, boots against dirt. Her heart climbs her throat and lands in her mouth making it hard to speak.

 

Peacekeepers.

 

She wants to say she is sorry. She didn't mean to get him into trouble. Because they both could end up in the stocks for this or worse, whipped. When all she wanted was to go somewhere where she wasn't surrounded by a fence, something both stupid and futile.

 

But he beats her to it and she opens her mouth to ask him why on earth he would be sorry but then he his pressing her against the tree, his hand capturing her wrist and holding it above her head. His lips a breath away from hers. She can smell the lemon and lavender on his skin.

 

“I'm sorry,” He says again, softly, his breath warm against her lips. And then his lips are on hers, gentle and ardent and she can feel something wake up in her blood, humming and alive with some new found energy that she has never felt before. Her toes curl in her boots as the world goes absolutely still. She can't hear the boots anymore or the birds twittering in the trees just the thundering of her heart in her ears.

 

Like it's reminding her it still beats.

 

She pries her eyes open and is left staring up into blue. The edge of the sky couldn't compete.

 

“What's this?” A voice says behind them. Peeta blinks once before he plasters on a sheepish smile and turns to the group of peacekeepers standing in a line looking at them. A couple are snickering but the leader looks annoyed.

 

He says something about an interruption but Katniss can't keep up, she is overly aware of the way Peeta's body is pressed against hers, the way his hand holds her wrist, soft, his finger rubbing a circle in the tender skin where her bones connect. She stares at the line of black boots in the dust.

 

She can't breathe.

 

Her whole body is warm, too warm. She presses her face against him to hide. The group of peacekeepers laugh as Peeta says that they must have lost track of time. The leader of the group rolls his eyes and tells them to get home and next time he won't hesitate to put them in the stocks.

 

Then they are left alone.

 

She feels her breath coming back. He steps away from her and she stumbles a little, he reaches out to catch her and she jerks away from him.

 

“I'm sorry.” He says quickly. “I just, they were coming and there wasn't a whole lot of time-”

 

“It's fine.” She growls. It Is anything but fine. She feels-

 

She feels-

 

She isn't sure what she feels.

 

But something deep inside of her is awake.

 

And it hurts.

 

~~..~~

  


She finds safety in the confines of her closet.

 

That is the place she presses her fingers against her lips and remembers.

 

She remembers a lot of things.

 

Like her father pressing his lips against her mothers in the dim candlelight at evenings end.

 

The way her mother smiled against him while he sang against her skin.

 

Then she tucks herself into a ball and falls asleep.

 

~~..~~

 

She reluctantly crosses the threshold into the shoe shop.

 

Delly is leaned against the counter, her curls spilling over her shoulder as she laughs at something Peeta has said to her.

 

Katniss wants the ground to yawn open and swallow her whole but there really is no time to dwell on it as Prim yanks her forward as Peeta stands straight suddenly and gives her a warm smile.

 

“Hey Katniss,” He says, clearing his throat. Delly remains leaning, her eyes bouncing between Katniss and Peeta.

 

“Uh, hey Peeta.” She mumbles at the floor.

 

“I need a pair of boots.” Prim says.

 

So Katniss turns to wander away.

 

Peeta has other ideas.

 

“Katniss, I'm sorry-”

 

She cuts him off because the mortification is just too much to deal with, especially with her little sister walking around within earshot.

 

“It's fine Peeta, I said it was fine and it is.”

 

He looks like he doesn't believe her. It could be because she has been avoiding him for a week. It could be the way her eyes can't seem to meet his. She can hear Delly and her sister chatting softly near the back of the store. His eyes are on her, waiting, for what she isn't sure.

 

She pushes passed him and she can hear him mumble something to himself as he thumps his head on the shelf behind him. She doesn't look behind her until she is safely standing on the sidewalk. He doesn't follow her but when her eyes meet his he smiles sadly, like he knew. Like he has always known exactly what she was going to do before she did it.

 

Delly rounds the corner and touches his elbow on the way to the cash register. Katniss plays with her braid and doesn't look back up until her sister is leaving with a brand new pair of black boots.

 

When they pass by the bakery she stops to look at the cakes and cookies in the window. The display is awash in the colors of fall, deep reds and crisp oranges.

 

Peeta steps out of the shoe shop just as Prim tugs on her sleeve. The slats of the sidewalk grunt beneath his weight as he walks and stops just short of her. She turns back and looks at the cakes.

 

“These are beautiful.” Katniss says.

 

“Thanks,” Peeta says and she can hear his crooked smile. “I did them myself.”

 

“Really?” She isn't sure why this surprises her. She has seen him out on the back porch sketching in that old ledger more times than she can count. Somehow she didn't put it together.

 

“They're lovely, If I had one I don't think I could eat it.”

 

“Really? So you would buy one of my cakes?” He asks. She doesn't know why but this makes her smile.

 

“Yes.” She says, trying to force a scowl on her face.

 

He looks away with a grin.

 

She feels the heat pooling in her cheeks.

 

“Would you buy one of mine?” Katniss asks suddenly. He laughs because he knows that one of hers couldn't compare, it would be crude and taste awful.

 

“Yes.” He says without hesitation. She can't swallow her smile this time.

 

Prim tugs on her sleeve and rolls her eyes at them.

 

“Later, Everdeen.” He says as they leave.

 

She can't help but turning to look at him. She can't help smiling at him. He ducks his head toward her in goodbye but makes no move to take his eyes off her.

 

~~..~~

 

She has the dream again.

 

She is falling.

 

Helpless.

 

~~..~~

 

The days grow shorter.

 

Prim is learning with remarkable speed at the apothecary, under her grandmothers watchful gaze. Katniss is put to work cleaning and cooking, not that she minds so much, it's better than sitting around waiting for the next jabbing remark, for the next blow. This particular day is dark with the first sprinkles of the season.

 

Katniss spends the morning boiling water to scrub the floor clean of the dust of summer. Just as she is finishing the bell above the door rings and Peeta steps inside.

 

“Don't you dare walk on my clean floor with those muddy boots.” She growls and he smiles crookedly.

 

“Yes, Ma'am.” He says. Raindrops clinging to his curls, his coat, his eyelashes.

 

Prim smiles over her soup she is eating at the counter and Peeta smiles back at her fondly.

 

“How are my two favorite Everdeen's today?” He asks and Prim blushes.

 

“What can we do for you Mr. Mellark?” The voice is like ice water and Peeta watches her smile slide off her face and shatter on the floor.

 

Lilah stands on the stairs, looking a little worse for wear. Her skin is gray and her hair isn't neatly coiffed but braided down her back.

 

Peeta eyes Katniss as she picks up her pale of muddied water. He instinctively reaches out to help her with it but Lilah snorts.

 

“Its her job, Peeta, she can handle it fine.”

 

Peeta watches her and Katniss uses her eyes to plead with him to let it go. Thankfully, he does, explaining the cough his father has. Prim gets to work right away on some sort of tea to help him sleep at night. Peeta leans against the counter. Katniss steps out to the back porch and dumps the dirty water in the yard.

  


He steps out behind her and shuts the door.

 

“So.... She's an old witch.” Peeta says quickly.

 

She snorts.

 

“Katniss, you don't deserve the way she treats you.” His voice is steadfast and hard. “You know that right?”

 

Her eyes flit away.

 

Deserving never was apart of the agreement. No one ever said life was going to be fair. Katniss just knows she is glad that Lilah's pent up hostility isn't focused on sweet little Prim.

 

“Maybe.” She says lamely.

 

She stands there staring at the mud and muck. She can hear his soft breathing next to her and it both calms her and sets her on edge.

 

When she finally risks a glance in his direction his eyes hold an intensity that she has never seen before. A thousand worlds locked away inside of him. She inches closer to him, her boots scarcely make a noise on the sagging slats of wood. She wonders if he is as warm as she remembers. If he still smells like lavender.

 

Her eyes lock with his and a strange smile plays on his lips as he watches her creep closer to him. His hand reaches out and touches hers, his skin barely brushing hers. She is so close to him she can feel his heat radiating against her.

 

His brows knit together and his lips part, his tongue wetting them as he gears up for some long winded speech, she is sure of it. And she doesn't want him to speak. She wants him to- She isn't sure what exactly she wants from him. He leans down and her breath hitches in her chest. The world swims around her.

 

The door slams from somewhere to her left and she jolts backward. Peeta laughs, a shaky noise that echoes in the damp afternoon.

 

“Um, I'm sorry.” He says as Katniss stares down at her boots. She offers him a halfhearted shrug and inhales a lungful of cool, wet air, trying to get her heart to slow. Her eyes flit upward and land on her sister.

 

Prim is watching them from the doorway with a bucket of chicken feed on her hip. Her eyes wide and her spare hand pressed against her mouth. Katniss can feel herself going red from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes.

 

“Impeccable timing Primrose.” Peeta says dryly.

 

“Primrose Everdeen what are you doing sneaking around?” Katniss huffs out as Prim raises her eyebrows at her.

 

“I'm feeding the chickens, what are you doing out here Katniss Everdeen?” Prim mimics her tone and Katniss feels her lip curl back from her teeth. Prim knows how much she hates it when she does that.

 

“Well, stop dawdling around.” Katniss grumbles as Prim laughs in her face.

 

“I'm not the one lazing around on the back porch.”

 

“Ugh, whatever.” Katniss mumbles.

 

“I should get back to the bakery.” Peeta says. Stepping off the porch and into the rain. He doesn't glance back at her but he has to feel Katniss watching him all the way back to the bakery.

 

The second he is out of sight Prim is laughing at her and Katniss can feel herself going red again.

 

“I have to get back to work.” Katniss says, passing her sister by.

 

“Yeah, quit dallying around!” Prim calls after her. “You can kiss boys on your own time.”

 

Her feet root to the ground and she whips herself around, her braid nearly smacking her in the face. “I was not kissing any boys.”

 

“Yeah, alright.” Prim says, looking entirely unconvinced.

 

~~..~~

  


Katniss takes to making herself small. She does her best not to get on Lilah's nerves, skating around her during the day and hiding up in her room after dinner. Tonight though they have a break in the rain and Katniss can't help but slip outside to the old brittle rocking chair and watch the afternoon bleed into night in a show of violent orange and vestal pinks.

 

She doesn't mind doing the mending, it's quiet and absorbing and she can sit with her thoughts for hours, focusing on the needle, the thread, and her own ragged breathing.

 

This is what she is doing when Poppy Hayes practically skips up to the back door of the bakery with her dirty blonde hair brushed back away from her face and tied back with a bright blue ribbon that matches the smart dress she is wearing and the pale stockings on her legs that don't have a single hole in them. She raps on the door quickly and Katniss watches unseen as the girl fiddles with the hem of her dress and tucks her bangs back from her face.

 

What is Poppy Hayes doing at the backdoor of the bakery?

 

The door swings open and Katniss can't see who Poppy is talking to but the girl giggles, actually giggles! Katniss pricks her finger with the needle and curses under her breath, stuffing her finger in her mouth and cranes her neck, trying to see who is standing at the backdoor.

 

Poppy is sure to be disappointed when she realizes that Peeta isn't available. Katniss huffs to herself and tosses aside the pile of mending, her mood suddenly sour.

 

She stares down at the sock in her hand until Poppy has disappeared behind the heavy wooden door.

 

Then it hits her that she is acting like a besotted school girl. She knows that the feeling is somehow tied to Peeta and she feels her heart skip a beat.

 

This stops.

 

Now.

 

~~..~~

 

She stands on the porch of the bakery in her bare feet. The hem of her pants are caked in mud as she shifts her weight from foot to foot. She can’t stop staring at the light pouring from the kitchen window. Everything about it reminds Katniss of warmth and safety.

 

Sanctuary.

 

She knows the truth though. Peeta is no more safe in there as he would be out in the woods with snarling animals or in an arena of twenty three tributes.

 

She clutches the bundle of paper to her chest and looks out over the backyards of the other merchants. The sky is dark, threatening to break open and drench the earth at the slightest provocation. It reminds her of bread, the kind with nuts and raisins and smells like heaven.

She glances back down at the bundle of wax paper in her hands, peeling it back and examining the paper she bought carefully.

 

She feels so stupid. She feels tears bite the back of her eyes. Her chin quivers and she turns, racing down the steps without ever even knocking on the door.

 

He gave her life all those years ago.

 

All she has for him is paper .

 

~~..~~

 

It's pouring.

  


The rain pounds against the roof and Temperance spends the morning fixing up a soup for dinner. She putts around the kitchen while Katniss and Prim ready for school. Next week is the harvest festival and Prim can't stop chattering about it like a little squirrel. Katniss doesn't have much to say about it she has been in a decidedly sour mood since she saw Poppy at the back of the bakery two days ago and she has tried to ignore it, tried so hard to ignore the blue eyed boy that seems to sniff her out wherever she is.

 

She feels silly, like she ever was a viable option for him. She might be living under Lilah's roof in the merchant quarter but she still is seam, she still has her same complexion.

 

She is still an Everdeen.

 

But it doesn't stop the sting of rejection that drips through her. It doesn't stop her from feeling so incredibly stupid. For what? She isn't even sure she just knows that she is overwhelmed by the excited little swoop her stomach does when Peeta smiles at her. Something both foreign and frightening.

 

She shoos Prim out the door and they practically run to school. Katniss dodges merchant girls that linger in the hallway and a group of Seam boys that are tossing a ball around inside. She ignores the Peacekeepers in their pristine white uniforms and their glazed over eyes that watch, always watching.

 

She reaches her locker and drops her bag at her feet. She is exchanging her coal production book for her maths book when something bright yellow flashes in front of her face. She steps back in shock and the book in her hand clatters to the floor.

 

She curses loudly as Peeta apologizes, tucking the flower he just offered back into his palm. She glares at him as he scoops up her book one handed and places it in her waiting hands as she stands frazzled and breathless, trying not to look directly at him.

 

“Um, I found this and thought of you.”

 

In this moment she is sure he knows. She takes the tiny flower and stares at it. She doesn't understand why he is giving it to her. He doesn't know that its food and it isn't a flower that would be considered pretty by merchant standards. It's just a weed, nothing special about it. She looks up at him suddenly and he takes a step back like he has been caught spying.

 

“What is this?” She doesn't mean for her voice to sound so vitriol, so violent, but it does, even in the din of the crowded hallway.

 

“A dandelion.”

 

“I know that, I'm not dense!” She snarls, slamming the door to her locker and yanking her bag up to her shoulder. “I mean, why are you giving it to _me_ ?”

 

He swallows, looking almost crestfallen but Katniss doesn't understand why.

 

“I thought you liked them.” He says softly and it's like she has been gutted. He remembers that day. He remembers her.

 

“I do.” It's breathless, like she has been punched right in the chest.

 

For a long moment all they do is breathe.

 

“I'm sorry if I have done something to offend you.” He finally says and it just makes everything worse because he sounds so small and he is so kind. Of course he thinks he has done something.

 

“You didn't,” She says quickly. “I just- I just-” She notices a group of seam girls behind her whispering behind their hands and she swallows the rude gesture she wants to make at them.

 

“What does Delly think about you bringing other girls flowers?” She doesn't like the edge that has crept into her voice.

 

His eyebrows dip together.

 

“Delly?” He sounds perplexed and she can't stop the blush creeping up her neck. “Why would Delly care what I do?”

 

“Isn't she your- your- girlfriend?” Katniss stammers out.

 

He laughs in her face.

 

She feels the prickle of irritation shoot up her spine.

  


“Delly isn't my girlfriend, Katniss.” He chortles once he is done.

 

“Well, it's not that far fetched.” She grumbles. “But I am sure Poppy will be pleased.” She plays with the strap of her bag so she doesn't have to look at him when she says it.

 

“Poppy?” He looks confused and maybe a little lost. Then something clears in his head and his eyes go wide.

 

Her instincts tell her to run.

 

Her muscles tighten at the look on his face.

 

“Why do you care?” He says.

 

She feels so open and exposed.

 

She opens her mouth to say that she doesn't.

 

The truth is that she doesn't know.

 

Instead she clamps her lips shut and he smiles like this was an answer in and of itself, like he knows exactly what she is thinking.

 

His teeth are so white, even under the sallow lights in the hallway. Even on this dark rainy day.

 

“Can I walk you to class?” He asks, pretending that he can't see her blushing furiously.

 

“I guess,” She huffs already turning away from him, but something sweet and warm is spreading through her veins and when her hand brushes his as they walk in silence she can feel the jolt of electricity run through her as real as if she had gone and touched the fence.

 

It's delicious and new so, so achingly sweet.

 

~~..~~

 

Lilah buys Prim a new dress with matching ribbons and coos over her while Katniss watches from the kitchen over a mug of weak mint tea that reminds Katniss of her mother, of those months right after her father died, of charred bread pressed against damp skin.

 

“You will be the prettiest girl at the harvest festival!” Lilah says as Prim twirls, smiling widely at her grandmother.

 

Katniss just stays hunched over her homework twirling her pencil between her fingers.

 

“Look at you.” Lilah says happily, running her hands down Prims arms. “My little Thea.”

 

It is so quiet that Katniss almost doesn't catch it, but she does and her eyes flit upward to meet her aunts in the middle of the room.

 

Prim swallows hard and the air goes out of the room.

 

Then Prim flashes her grandmother a smile that doesn't reach her eyes.

 

“Thank you, Grandmother.” and Lilah grins, unaware of the turn the mood has taken.

 

Later, after dinner, Temperance and Katniss stand at the sink. Temperance washing the dishes and Katniss drying them with a towel. She hands Katniss a warm plate and sighs.

 

“She _is_ the spittin' of Thea.”

 

“Prim isn't our mother.” Katniss says simply.

 

Temperance is quiet for a long time.

 

“She'd do anything to have Althea back.” She settles on and Katniss lets the anger crackle up her spine.

 

“Even take in her bastard grandchildren?” Katniss snorts before she can stop herself.

 

“Well, Thea was always supposed to be the one.” Temperance stares out at the window, the rain that sheets off the roof. “We're the same you and I.” She says finally.

 

“What do you mean?” Katniss says, setting aside the plate and holding out her hand for another. Temperance ignores it completely.

 

“We were never s’pose to exist.”

 

~~..~~

 

Katniss leans against the wall, watching as Peeta finishes up with his last customer of the day and hops over the counter to flip the sign from open to closed.

 

“So how about a cup of tea?” He says as he whirls around. She kicks off of the wall to follow him into the cramped kitchen. She has never been passed the threshold before now, she only got glimpses of the back. She hadn't realized how warm it was back here. She never imagined that she would be spending an afternoon here as a guest, sitting at the table like an equal while Peeta doled a spoonful of precious honey into her tea and offered her a day old snickerdoodle.

 

She takes it delicately and inhales the scent of baking bread and molasses as Peeta pulls out a chair across from her and sits, setting his elbows on the table and leaning against them heavily. His blue eyes watching her like he is waiting for her to run out the backdoor.

 

“What?” She says with an annoyed laugh, ducking his gaze.

 

“Nothing,” He says with a laugh. “Eat your cookie.”

“Is that why you invited me over?” Katniss says to her cookie. “To fatten me up?”

 

“Maybe.” He leans back in his chair and rubs a hand over his stubble. “Maybe I'm trying to butter you up.”

 

“Why would you need to butter me up?”

 

“Never mind,” He says suddenly. “Just eat your cookie.” He stands and knocks his chair back and she watches as he nervously puts a clean plate in the sink. She eyes the cookie in her hand and sets it on the table in front of her.

 

“No,” She says forcefully. “What is it?”

 

“Never mind, it's stupid.”

 

He's blushing and that makes her smile. It is good to know she isn't the only one that gets flustered. She pushes the cookie around on the wooden counter and feels the grin threatening to split her face entirely. When she finally does look up he is watching her intently and the grin drops from her face suddenly.

 

“Do you have a date for the festival yet?” He rushes the words out so fast they melt together and it takes several moments to decipher what he asked her. When she finally does work it out she reaches forward and grabs half of the cookie, stuffing it into her mouth to give herself a moment.

 

His hands are knotted at his side and his eyes are locked on her face, wide and hopeful.

 

Why would he ask her of all people? She glances down at her legs. She is stick thin and coltish. Not at all a beauty like the merchant girls. Not like Poppy or Delly who can actually fill out their dresses. She inhales sharply through her nose and glances away from him.

 

“Why?” She asks from around her mouthful of cookie.

 

He leans against the sink and runs his hand through his curls.

 

“Because I was wondering if you'd go with me?” Again, it takes her a moment and when she finally realizes what he said he isn't looking at her, he is fidgeting with apron.

 

She swallows carefully and watches him, waiting for the butt of the joke.

 

“What?”

 

“You can't make this easy on me can you?” He whispers with a smile. His tone light but she can see the fear behind his eyes. She is sure she has seen it in his eyes before but she isn't sure when or how.

 

“What would your mother say about it?” She asks, picking apart her cookie with her fingers.

 

“Does it matter?” He asks. “What would Gale Hawthorne think?” He asks suddenly and she shoves more of her cookie in her mouth, cinnamon and sugar melting on her tongue. She swallows down the dry crumbs with her lukewarm tea.

 

“It doesn't matter what Gale Hawthorne thinks.” She snarls. It feels weird to say Gale's name in Peeta's presence. Its like they live in two separate worlds.

 

Gale.

 

Her stomach twists painfully and she wonders if he has a date to the festival. If he still thinks of her when he is out in the woods, away from the Capitol’s claws. She swallows more of her cookie and it gets stuck on the lump in her throat.

 

Peeta is looking at her with eyes wide but unshocked, like she has revealed something painful but not surprising. He smiles a little sadly at her. She waits for him to get angry, throw her out, say that this was a cruel joke but he doesn't, he just moves across the room and sits across from her. The scrape of the chair against the floor the only noise in the room.

 

“Gale and I aren't really speaking.” She says and she is surprised at the sadness in her voice, the timidness.

 

“I'm sorry to hear that.” Peeta says and his hand reaches out and covers hers. She relishes the warmth though she would never admit to anyone.

 

“He acts like this was a choice I made, coming here to the merchant quarters.” She tucks her legs up onto her chair. “I think he would have rather I gone to the community home.” She hadn't meant to say that. She hadn't meant to tell Peeta so much. It's almost like she can't help but spill herself before him. At that thought she feels feverish. Afraid of what it could mean for her.

 

She waits for Peeta to offer an opinion, like Gale would have done. He doesn't, he just pushes a little bit of her cookie toward her and offers to warm up her tea for her. She is watching his back as he pours more steaming water into her mug when she says it.

 

“Peeta?”

 

He turns to her with a soft smile.

 

“I'd love to go to the festival with you.”

 

His smile is like sunshine.

 

~~..~~

 

Katniss can feel Lilah watching her back and she stiffens her spine as she walks.

 

“You know child, you could be a little more grateful to me.” Lilah says punctuating every word with a clink of her spoon against the cup of tea that Katniss has just handed her. Katniss doesn't roll her eyes this time. She doesn't react, just turns and watches Lilah like the snake in the grass she is.

 

“Come here.” Lilah orders.

 

Katniss walks over the the woman who stands up and appraises her like chattel, her eyes lingering in each hollow that Katniss can't fill.

 

“You've been spending a lot of time with the Mellarks youngest.” She says almost conversationally but Katniss can hear the edge that has crept into her voice.

 

Katniss says nothing.

 

“I honestly can't see what he sees in you.” Lilah says breathlessly. “But then he seems to be the kind to take in stray dogs.”

 

Katniss tells herself not to care but she does. It lands right in her stomach like a kick but her face stays placid, thanks to years of practice.

 

“Get out of my sight.” Lilah snarls.

 

Katniss does as asked. And when the door shuts behind her she slumps against it, listening to the soft patter of rain against the roof.

 

She climbs out of the window again and as she lands in the mud below her window she wonders, if it weren't for Prim she would surely never come back here again. She stands in the rain looking up at the light in her window and knows deep in her heart that she doesn't belong there.

 

Katniss is soaked by the time that she makes it to the steps of the bakery. She must look like a drowned rat with her braid sticking to her neck and her shirt clinging to her body in a way that Lilah would deem entirely inappropriate.

 

Before she has time to think she knocks on the door and pulls back, tucking her hands into her pockets. The middle boy answers the door not even bothering to greet her he turns and walks off, calling for Peeta.

 

She doesn't dare step inside. She doesn't want to see them all sitting down to a dinner that she has just interrupted.

 

“Katniss?”

 

She startles back and it feels silly but he steps outside and shuts the door behind them, affording her a little privacy.

 

“Are you alright?”

 

She’s trembling and she isn't sure if it is because of the cold or the restlessness taking over her very being. Can he see it on her face? The trepidation, the fear. Katniss isn't sure why she is here, not really. She just knew she had to see him. Had to see the kindness in his eyes. In a world where she fears she will be swallowed by cruelty.

 

“I'm-I'm fine.” Her teeth chatter and his hands reach out and run themselves down her arms. She can't breathe. She just stands as still as possible, afraid that if she moves he will stop.

 

And she doesn't want him to stop.

 

“Are you sure? You're freezing! Come inside before you catch your death.”

 

“No, it's okay, really, I need to get back home.”

 

That is a lie.

 

She doesn't have a home anymore.

 

“Oh well, what do you need?”

 

She searches his eyes as blue and comforting as faded denim. She needs him to know how much his kindness means to her. How she still dreams of the day they met, under a rain so much like this one. A day she was sure she would die. She needs him to know that she sees his kindness, in a world where kindness is a weakness that could get you killed.

 

That is what she is thinking about when Katniss leaps up into his arms. Peeta hesitates, his arms out at his side like he is afraid to touch her. He feels solid under her touch as her arms lock around his neck. Then he is hugging her back and she is breathing in the heady smell of rain and cinnamon and dill. She melts against him for the briefest of moments.

 

“Hey,” He says softly as she hides her face against his chest. His fingers tilt her chin upward, forcing her to look directly in his face. She tries to look away, feeling herself going berry red, but she can't move. One of his arms has her locked into place.

 

“What's wrong?” He asks.

 

She wants to spill everything out onto his porch. The starvation. The fear. The bruises and cuts. The mornings she woke to her mother sobbing out her father’s name into her blankets. The way that Prim's skin bruises when she can't sleep, or the way her ribs protrude and how Katniss isn't sure that they'll ever go back to normal, even after months of good, hearty food. The way her mother looked laying beneath her quilt, her lips parted like she was trying to speak from beyond death.

 

She wants to let it all swarm around him so he can help her make some sense of it all.

 

But Peeta is just a boy. He can't help her put the shards of her life back together anymore than she could his.

 

“Nothing.” She says lamely, feeling a little stupid for her outburst. “Nothing, I just- I just wanted-” She cuts herself off with a sharp breath. The words hide themselves in the hollow of her chest.

 

She wanted to feel him against her, breathing and alive. So she could mimic, like a mockingjay, the way she is supposed to be.

 

Her hand reaches out, tentatively and presses against his chest where his heart thumps steadily under his flesh. She feels her eyebrows knot together curiously and her eyes shoot up to meet his. Her eyelids flutter.

 

“Katniss?”

  
  


He takes her hand in his and lifts it to his lips, pressing the gentlest of a kiss into her palm. Her heart stutters frantically and she goes numb suddenly it's almost like the pain was never there.

 

Her jaw fits perfectly in the palm of Peeta's hand and she doesn't want to know that. She doesn't want him to know that it melts her inhibitions away like candle wax.

 

So she runs before he has the chance to lean down and touch his lips to hers. Before that warmth works its way inside of her and breaks her in a way she could never fix.

 

She doesn't realize where she is going until she is already there.

 

Standing at her mother's grave in the rain, just like the day they buried her. Katniss stands in the mud, her face upturned to the rain, willing it to wash away the pain, the hurt. She wants it to strip the flesh from her bone so she can be reborn into something new.

  


But wishes are futile.

 

Why didn't her mother warn her?

 

Then it hits Katniss like a ton of bricks.

 

Maybe her final act was a warning.

 

She swears she can feel her mothers fingers ghosting over her skin like smoke. She wants to cry but she knows it's useless.

 

Her mother made her choice and it wasn't the daughters that needed her.

 

A betrayal that Katniss cannot and will not forgive.

 

~~..~~

 

She doesn't see Peeta for three days.

 

When he comes into the Apothecary he is pale and his eyes look too big for his face and Katniss finds herself following him to the back when Prim leads him to a wall of dried herbs, asking him a slew of questions. He answers in a dead voice and Katniss controls the impulse to reach for his arm, to offer him some of her useless comfort.

 

“Your father isn't better?” Katniss asks from the doorway and Peeta shakes his head.

 

“His cough is worse.” His voice is hoarse and has an empty quality to it. “The tea that Prim made helped but it came back.”

 

“I'm sorry.” Katniss says, staring at her hands.

 

He give her a twist of his lips, she thinks it is supposed to be a smile but she has seen the real thing. She knows he is more tired and scared than he is letting on.

 

Prim gives him another concoction to try but when the door shuts behind Peeta she sighs.

 

“You don't think it'll help?” Katniss asks her little sister.

 

“I don't know.” Prim says softly. “I have a feeling that if it doesn't, only the Capitol could help him.”

 

Katniss can't stop glancing at the door for the rest of the day.

 

~~..~~

  


There is a mandatory viewing in the square and Katniss holds onto Prim so tight she is sure she has no circulation left in her hand; but the little girl doesn't complain. Leaning into sister’s side as they make their way through the crowd.

 

“What happened?” A merchant woman asks somewhere to the left while another one clucks her tongue.

 

“Probably more of those seam rats making trouble for the rest of us.” The other one grumbles and Katniss grits her teeth, hard.

 

It becomes clear that someone was arrested for stealing a can of beans from the grocer. Prim wraps her arms around Katniss tightly and buries her face into her hip. The decree of guilt is read and a man with a black bag slung over his head is drug out into the square.

 

He is shoved to his knees and in the next breath there is the flash from the muzzle of a gun and he slumps over dead.

 

For a moment the crowd stands in the early afternoon mist, a mixture of horror and hollowness rolling through them. But then Katniss feels it. The simmering heat from the seam side of the crowd.

 

Someone shouts and something is thrown. Glass shatters and Katniss knows enough to grab Prim and make a run for it before the Peacekeepers get involved.

 

Just as she reaches the aged slats of wood a spray of bullets go through the crowd, the cobblestones flecked with red as women scream in horror.

 

She searches the crowd and catches sight of Gale with Posy under his coat making a run for the seam, Rory and Vick trailing after him with their mother.

 

“Katniss!” Her sister is tugging on her hand. “Katniss, come on!” Prim is bordering on hysteric, tears clinging to her eyelashes and still, Katniss can't move. Her eyes rove over the crowd.

 

“Katniss come on!”

 

“Just wait!”

 

Another wave of bullets rip through the mass and more people fall and Katniss can scarcely breathe. The acrid scent of  gunpowder and metallic blood hangs in the air.

 

Where is Peeta?

 

“Katniss!” Her sister bellows and Katniss turns suddenly. Her sister red faced and sobbing. Its chaos. People are everywhere, dashing this way and that, wailing. Something her father used to say comes to mind.

 

It's like shooting fish in a barrel.

 

Someone knocks into Katniss and she goes flying. Her hand wrenching out of Prims as she lands hard on the wood beneath her, knees scraping painfully.

 

“Prim?”

 

The crowd has swallowed the little girl and Katniss twists frantically trying to find her.

 

“Prim!” Pure unadulterated panic drags through her as she whips around, her braid hitting her neck as she wails her sisters name.

 

“Katniss!”

 

Her sister is hefted up so Katniss can see her and relief floods her veins so fast she nearly faints.  Throwing elbows and shoving her way through the horde as peacekeepers descend into the crowd. More gunfire sounds just as she reaches her sister and Peeta swims into view, pushing her through the door of the bakery and into the warmth where people are huddled everywhere.

 

“Are you alright?” He says, his fingers running over her face and down to her shoulders.

 

“I-I think so.” She turns to her little sister, who stands stock still with a heaving chest. “Primrose, are you okay?”

 

Prim just stares out at the crowd outside, still writhing and screaming. The peacekeepers with there black boots marching down the main road from the seam to town, as prevalent and wanted as cockroaches.

 

“Primrose!”

 

Prim’s eyes snap to Katniss and she nods. “I'm okay.” Her voice is small, childlike and Katniss feels her heart clench in her chest.

 

Her sister is already losing that innocence that Katniss has tried so hard to save. Her sister is older than she was just at breakfast.

 

“All those people-” Her sister whispers, her voice trailing off to nothing

 

“Hey, Prim.” Peeta says

Prim snaps her eyes toward Peeta and she is shaking but Peeta smiles like the world isn't crashing down outside and takes Prim's hand.

 

“I think I have a cut on my hand. Could you look at it?”

 

Prim is wide eyed but she nods and stares down at Peeta's palm that has a long, red gash Katniss hadn't noticed. Then it's like looking at their mother. Prim's eyes zone in on the wound and they are the only two people that exist, the battle waging outside is an afterthought.

 

It gives Katniss a chance to let out the choked sob she had been holding in.

 

She glances around at the people huddled in groups under tables and against walls. They all wear the look of injured prey.

 

Katniss slumps against Peeta, suddenly exhausted.

 

His hand reaches up and pets her like she is a child or a dog. Something that might annoy her on a different day. Today she leans into his touch. “Its okay.” He says and she knows its a lie but she can't seem to muster the energy to call him on it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It starts with a lie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What would I do without my beautiful amazing betas? Savvylark and Shannon17 are just the best ever! They are perfect angels and any mistakes are purely my own! And this was a monster of a chapter so I really hope you guys enjoy it!

Katniss stands in the middle of the square, entranced by the red water washing over her boots. The sight of it makes her heart pound as she drags her bag up over her shoulder. She stands stock still until Prim walks back and grabs her hand and pulls her along like a toddler.

 

She wonders if the red belonged to anyone she knew.

 

The white uniforms swarm around her and she keeps her eyes firmly planted on the droplets of water clinging to the leather of her boots. She doesn’t dare look them in the eye.

 

~~..~~

 

Lilah announces it at dinner. The harvest festival will go on as planned. The turnip in her mouth tastes like ash and Katniss asks to be excused. No one bothers to follow her as she slips into the bathroom and locks the door behind her.

 

She stares at herself for a long time in the mirror.

 

The girl with the dark eyes, lank hair and pale lips.

 

Who is she?

 

~~..~~

 

“Katniss!”

 

She whirls around to see Peeta chasing after her. She slows her steps as he huffs up to her standing on the lawn of the school. Some younger seam kids dart between them. Katniss tucks her bangs behind her ear as he falls into step with her.

 

“You can be hard girl to find.” He rasps.

 

Only because she had been avoiding him but she keeps the thought to herself. She isn’t even sure why exactly. Maybe she is afraid that if she looks too closely she will see that day all over again? The fear in Prims eyes and blood on the ground and the helplessness she felt as she searched for sister in the panicked crowd.

 

“Lilah’s been keeping me busy.” It isn’t a lie exactly. Her grandmother has her mending and mopping and grinding herbs until nightfall. “To keep her out of trouble.” Lilah said

. Katniss thinks Lilah is just glad she doesn’t have to pay a housekeeper anymore.

 

“That’s too bad.” Peeta says, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jackets. From where she is standing she can see the mist of his warm breath against the cold air. She can also see the woods, the pines, the maples, in the most beautiful shades of red that dot the hillside. Katniss focuses on that instead of the way his eyes are focused  her face, scrutinizing her for the point of pain.

 

“The harvest festival is on Saturday.” His eyes finally flit away from her face. She breathes in relief. He digs the toe of his boot into the grass. Everything around her is suddenly interesting as he blushes furiously.

 

She finds her lip turning up crookedly as she watches him fidget out of the corner of her eye. He rubs the top of his head and it sends his curls flying in every direction. His eyes flit to and away from her nervously and she can’t help the flutter that starts in her stomach and spreads through her entire being.

 

The gray of fall suits him.

 

He clears his throat.

 

“Yeah, I heard.” She grumbles dumbly and immediately sucks her lips into her mouth to quiet herself.

 

“Um-” He is a flash of teeth.

 

“Hopefully the weather keeps.” She says, burying her nose in her scarf, widening her eyes at him playfully. He laughs, a nervous sound in the din of the schoolyard.

 

“Your messing with me.” He sulks kicking the toe of his boot in the mud.

 

She can’t help the little laugh that erupts from her chest.

 

“Maybe just a little.” She worries her braid between her fingers so she won’t be caught staring at his lips.

 

Katniss turns suddenly, certain that if she stands there any longer she is sure to do something foolish, like kiss him.

 

“I’ll see you on Saturday.” She breathes as she walks with purpose away from him.

 

One foot in front of the other.

 

~~..~~

 

The morning dawns bright and clear, blue and pinks that bleed together. Tiger striped and scarred.

 

Prim slips between her sheets next to her. Something that she has taken to doing since the day in the square. Katniss wakes violently as Prim presses her icy feet against her leg.

 

“Gah, Prim!” She rolls over as her sister settles against her back.

 

“The harvest festival is tonight.” Prim says.

 

“I know.” She grumbles, pulling the blanket over her head.

 

“Are you still going with Peeta?” Her sister's voice sounds far away, she is on the cusp of sleep.

 

“I said I would.” Katniss grumbles.

 

“He likes you.” Prim says as she presses her face to the pillow, content to leave the conversation to the early morning light. Katniss can’t though, she is suddenly wide awake, staring at the ceiling. An image of her mother comes to mind, staring out the window as she waits for the ghost of her father to cross the threshold. Her eyes far away, locked on the distant horizon. Waiting for something that could never be.

 

~~..~~

 

Katniss walks behind a group of miners heading for the hob. She tries not to eavesdrop but she hears it anyway.

 

Rumors of wars.

 

~~..~~  

 

Peeta comes to collect her at seven sharp. The square is already humming with activity as he leads her down the steps, his hand warm on her back. A group of merchant girls watch them from the edge of the crowd.

 

Katniss plays with the hem of the pale blue dress she is wearing. It belonged to her mother, once upon a time, just like the pins in her hair, just like the plain flats on her feet.

 

“You look lovely.” Peeta says, he clears his throat and shoves his hands in his pockets.

 

She shrugs her shoulders, unsure of what to say.

 

“Do you want to dance?” He asks and she eyes the crowd with uncertainty. When she looks back at him he smiles at her softly, almost reassuring. Almost.

 

“No?” He smiles at her crookedly and that thing, that warm thing that has taken up residence inside of her is burning in the pit of her stomach. Suddenly she wants to reach out, take the edge of his sleeve and lead him somewhere where all these prying eyes cannot see them. Somewhere she can touch the edge of his skin and live in the blue of his eyes without worrying what Poppy Hayes or Delly Cartwright have to say about her seam skin and his merchant hands and how they aren’t supposed to fit together.

 

“It’s too-” She chews on her lip and glances up at him. “Crowded.” she settles on and this makes him grin.

 

“Is it too crowded for some apple cider?” He asks, pointing to the stall and the people packed around it. “I promise I won’t let Delly talk your ear off.”

 

She should say no.

 

She should have said no from the beginning because she can feel it humming just under her skin. The warmth blooming inside of her hits so suddenly she feels sick.

 

She has only felt it once before, on the first bright day of spring so long ago.

 

Hope.

 

She can see Peeta’s lips moving but feel so removed. His voice wisping away like smoke.

 

Hope. What a deadly emotion. Once hope shows up it is only a matter of time before someone gets hurt.

 

He takes her hand and leads her through the crowd and she follows, feeling like a kite on a string.

 

It takes them a long time to even reach the stall. Peeta knows everyone in town and she isn’t terribly surprised by that, he is so friendly after all. He has to stop and chat with everyone and its mildly annoying. She has no choice but to follow.

 

He smiles apologetically as they step up to the line and Katniss listens politely as Peeta chats with her about the weather, school and the bakery. Katniss hopes she is smiling when she should but her ears are ringing and her skin is still humming. She can’t stop staring at his lips, up through her eyelashes.

 

She has kissed him before but it wasn’t real. An act for the peacekeepers.

 

What would the real thing be like?

 

Would it feel like the kiss with Gale?

 

Would his lips taste like fever or fire? Would he be sharp as an ax or gentle like the spring stars?

 

She promised herself so long ago she would never love. She would never have a family that could be ripped away.

 

_A kiss couldn’t hurt anything._

 

The small voice in her head whispers in her ear and she remembers that day he kissed her in the meadow. The way his thumb brushed the delicate skin of her wrist like it was made of glass.

 

The way she was dazed for hours afterward.

 

The way it hurt in a way that reminded her she was still alive.

 

She straightens her spine and pulls her braid over her shoulder.

 

He hands her the paper cup and she clutches it, the warmth soaking into the flesh of her palms.

 

Katniss turns and walks away from him.

 

When she looks over her shoulder he is still standing there, starry eyed and unsure.She has to come back and take him by the hand and lead him through the crowd.

 

“Where are we going?” He asks.

 

“Quit asking questions.” She snaps back, her hand still holding his firmly. He smiles at her.

 

She needs to let go.

 

She doesn’t. At this point she isn’t sure she can.

 

The meadow looks the same no matter what time of year it is, scraggly and overgrown. Her feet stop suddenly at the sight of the boot prints in the dirt and the fading light that casts odd shadows over the golden grass.

 

He squeezes her hand gently.

 

“Katniss.” His voice is different. Deeper, nervous. Like he knows exactly what she is thinking.

 

She thinks of the bread he threw all those years ago. Her payment still sitting pristine in its wax wrapping, as inadequate as ever.

 

Her eyes cut upward sharply and he inhales and stumbles back, like he can see the fear in her eyes.

 

Could she ever show him just how much he means? The moment he tossed that bread at her he tied them together in a way Katniss could never hope to sever. They are as intertwined as roots.

 

She owes him everything and she has nothing to give him.

 

Except maybe-

 

She lifts herself up on her tiptoes and places her hand gently on his chest to steady herself.

 

His blue eyes drift down to where they touch. His eyes widen as her fingers gnarl against him, balling up his pale blue button up in her fingers.

 

His eyes are electric as they lock on her face. She think blue might be her new favorite color. Maybe it always was.

 

“Katniss-” His voice is barely a breath and she can feel its warmth pooling against the sensitive skin on her cheek. He smells like apples and spice and that thing that is entirely his own. She wonders if he tastes like apples too.

 

“Katniss I-” His voice crackles in the quiet.

 

“Peeta, shut up.” She whispers and his hand comes up to rest on her cheek. He is warm. He is alive.

 

She strains upward her hands locked in his shirt. His arm slides down hers and locks around her waist to keep her from toppling over.

 

“Okay.” He whispers against her lips. Her eyes slide shut as she waits for the pressure of his lips against hers.

 

His forehead knocks into her nose and a sharp pain shoots through her.

 

“Gah, ah!”

 

Peeta drops his arms from around her.

 

He looks like a beet.

 

“I am so- so sorry.”

 

She presses her palm flat against the bridge of her nose and inhales sharply.  The pain is already starting to ebb.

 

“It’s okay.” She says flatly. “I don’t think it’s broken.”

 

“I’m really sorry.” He says again, his hand running through his hair. “I uh-”

 

“Peeta, it’s okay.”  

 

They both laugh. High strung and nearly neurotic.

 

Then he looks at her and she has a flash of a memory. Her father looking at her mother as they dance in the candlelight of the kitchen. His hands rough on her mother's face, pale as cream.

 

Then Peeta crosses the space between them and has her face between her palms. His eyes search hers as she trembles beneath his touch. He could crush her if he wished, she can feel his strength under his skin, its inside of him, in his blood, in the very marrow of his bones.

 

 _Save me_. she thinks. _Make me feel something. Anything._

 

His lips part and she doesn’t want him to speak.  
  
  
  


“It’s alright.” She whispers. She isn’t sure if she is talking to him or herself.

 

His lips connect with hers and it feels like a dam breaks inside of her. That warm thing connected with Peeta bursts inside of her and floods her veins. His lips are just as warm as she remembers and he does taste like apples.

 

Safety.

 

Eventually, they break apart. She stands there stunned with her fingers pressed to her lips listening to her heart skipping like a rabbits.

 

“Katniss?”

 

Her eyes flutter wetly and she glances up at Peeta dumbly.

 

“What?” She breathes.

 

The sky went dark at some point, she isn’t sure when, but there is a spray of stars glinting down at them as Peeta reaches out and brushes the pad of this thumb against her cheekbone.

 

“Um, nothing.” He sounds nothing like the boy she has come to know, he sounds unsure. “Nevermind.”

 

He takes her hand and they walk toward town together in silence.

 

~~..~~

 

She climbs the stairs to her room tiredly, her whole body is still tingling from Peeta’s proximity.

 

“Where have you been young lady?”

 

Lilah's voice rends the quiet. Katniss stills, her hand still glued to the railing and she can hear the click of Lilah’s heels against the wood stairs.

 

“Your sister was home hours ago.”

 

“Prim was with Temperance. She is twelve, she can manage a couple of hours by herself.” Katniss grits out from between her teeth. Lilah makes a dismissive noise from her nose and Katniss can hear her frown.

 

“Your her big sister, you should have been watching her instead of out gallivanting at the slag heap with your Seam friends.” Lilah snarls. “You have one job and that is to take care of Primrose!”

 

Katniss can’t help the heat that floods her veins, the way the world turns red. She whirls on Lilah.

 

“She’s fine!”

 

Lilah and Katniss are nose to nose now and Katniss can smell the sharp liquor on her grandmothers breath.

 

When Lilah slaps her this time Katniss barely feels it.

 

Her fingers flex at her side and she can almost see her hand snap across her grandmothers face. She balls the hem of her dress up in her fingers to keep them firmly at her side.

 

Lilah storms away and Katniss stomps up the stairs, slamming the door behind her. She is left alone, staring at the almost empty room around her. She feels her nostrils flare as she takes it in. The mattress, her bedspread, the closet, even the clothes that fill it. Almost none of it is actually hers.

 

She well and truly hates her grandmother.

 

She crosses the room in a few quick strides and flings open the desk. Grasping the package of paper she climbs out her window and down the tree.

 

The bakery is dark but the apartment upstairs spills light. So she awkwardly begins her climb, only guessing which room is his as she slips as quietly as she can onto the roof, and prays she doesn’t end up face to face with Mrs. Mellark.

 

For one time in her life, Katniss Everdeen is lucky. She doesn’t run into Mrs. Mellark at all but a half asleep Rye Mellark and his half naked girlfriend, Poppy Hayes.

 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Rye snarls from behind the pane of glass. Katniss shrugs and holds up the paper.

 

“I have something for your brother.”

 

“We have a front door you know.”

 

“Where is the fun in that?”

 

“Two windows down.” He says with a roll of his eyes.

 

She pokes her head inside his open window and hisses his name into the darkness.

 

Then Peeta is standing there shirtless and her eyes hit her shoes almost audibly.

 

“Katniss?”He whispers groggily.

 

“Hi.”

 

“What are you doing?”

 

“Here.” She snaps and just like the plate she returned to him all those months ago, shoves the package into his hands without an explanation. She turns away so she doesn’t have to see the look on his face and just like with the plate she feels unbearably guilty about it.

 

“Take it, please.”

 

“Katniss? Is this-”

 

“It's not like Capitol paper.” She whispers. “It's not um- Its not as nice but its white.” She thinks of the splinters of wood, the roughness to it. “But you can draw on the whole thing, not just in the margins.”

 

“How do you know I draw?”

 

“I’ve just seen you drawing.” She feels so stupid.  
  


She tells herself its the height that is making her dizzy, not the way he is watching her.

 

“This is the nicest thing anyone has gotten me Katniss.” He runs his hands down the paper. His fingers play with the twine holding it all together. Katniss feels like that twine, pulled so taut she might snap.

 

“It’s nothing.” She says dismissively. “Not like the bread-”

 

“The what?” His eyes widen in surprise. The moonlight glints silver against them. Let them swallow her. Let her be nothing.

 

“The bread!” Maybe he doesn’t remember. A beating like she thought he would have to, but she guesses that it wasn’t as big of a deal to him. It was just two loaves, burned ones at that. “You saved my life.” She adds softly.

 

“The bread when we were kids?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Katniss I didn’t save anybody, that was you.”

 

“That is bullshit and you know it! I was starving and you- you-”

 

“I, what Katniss?” His voice is quiet but insistent.

 

She is silent. The kind of silent she learned from being out in the woods. He leans out of the window to stare her down with those ocean eyes of his.

 

“You saw me.” It is so honest it hurts. “You saw me when I was nothing.”

 

“Katniss,” His voice is kind. “You were never nothing.”

 

She wants to believe him.

 

Katniss knows the truth, she is just means to an end. Something necessary to Prims survival.

 

Nothing more.

 

~~..~~

 

The sun comes up so slow that Katniss thinks it might remain dark forever. But nothing last forever, not even night. when she finally crawls up through her window the first periwinkle rays of dawn are cresting the horizon.

 

She stares at the faded colors of the quilt, the very same one that her mother slept under at her age. Suddenly she fears she might cry. The tightness in her throat is almost as suffocating as the dust motes that hang in the air. Whirling suddenly, sure that her mother is right behind her, hanging from the ceiling, eyes staring sightless, lips tinged blue.

 

She isn’t there and Katniss wonders if she ever was.

 

The door creaks open and Lilah stands there in her night clothes, her hair glints silver in the low light.

 

“You slept well?” She asks Katniss, an odd kindness in her voice. Katniss doesn’t trust it. In fact, she tells herself she doesn’t trust anything anymore.

 

“I slept fine, Lilah, thank you.” Her voice is stiff.

 

“There is a girl.” Lilah says, stepping forward and reaching toward Katniss. It is instinct, as primal as the need for food or shelter or love, Katniss flinches back. Lilah curls her fingers toward her palm and sets her arm gently back at her side.

 

“Get downstairs.” Gone is the sugary tone that Katniss can’t stand. Good. At least they are back to normal. “Temperance needs help with the stove and your sister needs her breakfast.”

 

“Something wrong with your hands?” Katniss snarls and it’s a mistake, she knows it’s a mistake as soon as the words leave her lips.

 

Lilah has a dark, hungry look to her as her hand wraps around Katniss’s arm. The woman is surprisingly strong for being as old as dirt. She flings Katniss out the door and slams it behind her.

 

“Careful Lilah,” Katniss sneers. “You might wake Prim.”

 

Temperance doesn’t say anything when Katniss descends the stairs, still dressed in her blue dress from the night before, but makes room for her at the stove. They cook together, in a companionable silence. When Prim finally wakes, she comments on Katniss wearing the same thing as last night and chatters on about the decorations in the square. “Wasn’t Peeta just so handsome in his blue shirt?” and Katniss is so exhausted she can barely keep up.

 

No one says anything when she climbs the stairs to take a bath.

 

She listens to the water thunder in the tub as she tucks her knees to her chest. The water is as hot as she can stand and when she finally sinks into it she can’t help the moan of relief she gives.

 

Everything hurts.

 

She presses her fingers to her lips and wonders if it’s better than feeling nothing at all?

 

~~..~~

 

When she wakes its mid afternoon and despite her bath she is still stiff and sore. She comes down stairs. Prim says Lilah is out having tea with the grocer's wife. The weather is miserable, dark and gray, so Katniss settles in against Prim on the couch and listens with her eyes shut as Prim watches some Capitol cooking show.

 

She must fall asleep again because when she opens her eyes it’s dark out and Peeta Mellark is standing over her, a pale blue box in his hands.

 

“Gah!” She shoots up, running her fingers through her tangled hair as he clears his throat.

 

“You do this to everybody? Stare at them while they sleep or am I just special?”

 

“Says the girl that was prowling outside my window last night.”

 

“Don’t mind her none, Peeta.” Prim yells from the kitchen. “She’s always cranky when she first wakes up.

 

He smiles crookedly.

 

Her heart stutters.

 

“I like your hair down.” He clears his throat and she watches as he turns three different shades of red. She feels her eyes narrowing as he shifts his weight from one foot to the other.

 

“I like your-”

 

Shit.

 

“Box.”

 

He flat out laughs.

 

She pulls her knees to her chest and stares at the television.

 

“It’s ah- it’s a cheese bun, nothing fancy but I thought you might be hungry.”

 

“Thank you,” She can’t help the warm tone that takes over her voice. A voice she is hard pressed to recognize. What happened to the girl she used to be? What happened to that snarling, snapping feral animal, the one that needed to survive at all costs?

 

“Can I sit?” Peeta asks as he hands her the box. Katniss is too busy shoving half of the roll into her mouth but she motions for him to sit next to her. The roll might be a little stale but its still the best thing she has ever eaten. She can’t help the pleased little moan that escapes her as Peeta stares at her, clearly amused.

 

“I uh, I wanted to ask you something.”

 

She reluctantly sets down the box.

 

“What is it?”

 

“Katniss when you-” He runs his hands through his hair. A nervous thing she thinks. She makes him nervous.

 

Good.

 

“When you-”

 

He watches the wall.

 

“When-”

 

She huffs in air through her nose.

 

“Peeta, out with it.” She rolls her eyes at him as he straightens his spine and leans toward her. For a second she is sure he is going to kiss her again, he doesn’t but he is searching her eyes.

 

“What is it?” If she was the type she’d beg because his eyes are dark, like the ocean, or at least the pictures of it.

 

“When you kissed me.” His hand comes up and holds her steady, his thumb brushing her jaw. “Was it a debt paid? Like the paper?”

 

The look on his face is heartbreaking.

 

“Was it what you owed me?”

 

Part of her wants to say yes. Part of her wants the warmth gone. So she can get on with her life and forget him. Go back to the girl she was before he pressed his lips to hers. To be the girl she was before she stepped into that house and found out her mother had ruined everything.

 

But she can’t go back.

 

Maybe if she could she would go back and change everything or nothing. But there is one thing she is certain of, when she kissed Peeta Mellark she wasn’t thinking of debts or who owed who and pretending that it was wouldn’t change a damn thing.

 

She opens her mouth to tell him just that but all the words stick to her throat like glue and she can hear the patter of the rain soft against the roof. So she does the only thing she can think of, she leans forward and presses her lips to his.

 

He smells spicy, like soap and when her hands come up to tangle in his hair its damp from the rain.

 

Her heart is battering against her ribcage like a bird against a windowpane.

 

His hands tangle in her hair and his lips part hers, and carefully, so carefully, his tongue lapped at her bottom lip. All the air is sucked away from her as she heaves helplessly. A minute passes, or maybe its an hour, Katniss isn’t sure. Finally he turns to her.

 

“Is this real?” He whispers.

  
  


~~..~~

  
  


She walks to school alone.

 

Her boots squelch in the soggy mudpit of a yard out front of the slumping brick building. She is just stepping up onto the ancient old stairs when she hears the laughter. She turns to see a group of seam kids whispering behind their hands, eyes flitting to her and then away. She knows that they are talking about her. Katniss knows she is subject of endless gossip. The girl too seam to be merchant, and too merchant to be seam.

 

They aren’t brazen enough to say anything to her.

 

She doesn’t bother to correct anything they might say.

 

~~..~~

 

She’s late.

 

She slides into the classroom five minutes after the second bell and receives a glare from the coal productions teacher as a prize for her having ran the entire way from her locker. Her normal seat next to Madge Undersee is taken up by Delly Cartwright and when Peeta kicks out the chair from the seat next to him, she would have sworn they planned it. Madge meets her eyes and shrugs. Delly doesn’t dare look at her.

 

Still she sits down and without a word he passes her his notes so she can copy down what she missed.

 

“Thanks,” She breathes, chest still heaving. Peeta’s eyes don’t leave the chalkboard but he smiles crookedly. She smiles dumbly back at him.

 

~~..~~

 

She doesn’t stop him when he straightens her scarf around her neck and motions for her to lead the way out of class.

 

And at the end of the day she finds herself running to catch up to him. Falling into step with him, hefting her bag up onto her shoulder and standing so close to him her hand brushes his. This sends the strangest thrill through her, something that feels the same as forest air in her lungs.

 

Sweet and wild

 

He says goodbye to her at the apothecary door and when his fingers reach out and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear she wonders if he will kiss her again. She hardly dares to breathe. He doesn’t kiss her though, just smiles warmly. Katniss finds herself standing alone, disappointed, watching him disappear behind the bakery door.

 

That’s when she sees Gale standing there watching her across the street, his face as unreadable as ever. His hair slick and wet. She opens her mouth to say something but he turns and storms off. Dropping the bouquet of wildflowers he was holding to the ground.

 

Leaving her alone to swallow her own heart.

 

~~..~~

 

“Something is rooting around in the alleyway. I can hear it to kingdom come.” Lilah doesn’t skip a beat, she shoves her spoon into her mouth and glares at Katniss. “Go chase it off, Girl.”

 

Katniss wraps her sweater around herself tighter and steps out into the icy night air. Winter has reared her icy head, its mid November now and in just a few weeks the rain has turned to sleet, a few weeks more and it’ll be fat, wet flakes of snow that will cling to the dirt until the march rains wash it away.

 

“Buttercup, if that is you I swear.” She grumbles, grabbing the broom fully prepared to chase off the cat or a raccoon or even a stray dog. She whacks the garbage bin and waits for the tell tale scrambling of claws and fur.

 

She doesn’t expect the small squeal of the child that goes racing passed her knees, nearly bowling her over. Years of hunting has perfected Katniss’s reflexes and her fingers claw into the threadbare, wet collar of a jacket and hefts the tiny body upward. Katniss comes face to face with a little girl, both familiar and frightening, she almost drops her.

 

“Raven!”

 

The girl spits and hisses like a stray kitten as Katniss tilts her chin up into the light.

 

“Raven Talbert?”

 

The little girl stops struggling but glares at Katniss.

 

“What are you doing out here in this weather, you’ll catch your death.” Raven stares at her, her eyes narrowed distrustfully. “Where is your Mama?”

 

Ravens eyes go wide and then her face goes slack, rain dripping off her nose and onto her jacket that is more threads than anything. “She’s dead ma’am.”

 

“When?” Katniss tries to remember the mother, a little, round faced woman that worked down in the mines and clearly wasn’t cut out for it. The news of her death doesn’t surprise Katniss, just a drop of rain really, in thousands.

 

By the end of winter Raven will probably be dead too and then the both of them will disappear into oblivion, just the same as Katniss’s parents. “measles took her at the end of summer.”

 

“What about your father?”

 

The girl sucks in a sharp breath. “Ain’t got one.” When she says this Katniss remembers what her mother had said about the girl after she was tended and back home. She has blue eyes. A merchant trait.

 

After all, no virgin births were happening in twelve. She had a father alright he just never claimed her. He was a merchant and Raven was a half breed, like Katniss.

 

Katniss drops the little girl on the stairs of the porch. “What are you doing digging around in the garbage bins?”

 

Katniss knows full well what she was doing, but the girls teeth are chattering viciously and she is worried that if she doesn’t keep her talking she’ll freeze to death right before her very eyes.

 

“Hungry.” Raven whispers, wiping her nose on her sleeve. Katniss stares at tiny little Raven for a long time. The wind howls around them. “The home locked me out.”

 

The community home.

 

Katniss puts her hands on her hips and stares out at the blackness around them. A dog barks in the distance. Rain pounds against the awning above them. Katniss can’t let the girl in, Lilah would have a fit and probably kick Katniss out and she can’t risk losing Primrose.

 

“You itching?” Katniss asks and Raven shakes her head. “I mean it Raven! You don’t have bugs do you?” Raven shakes her head again and Katniss huffs. Not decided if the little girl is more trouble than she is worth yet.

 

Those blue eyes look up at her and Katniss is reminded so much of Prim it hurts. If Raven was Prim she would want someone to help her.

 

“Wait here.”

 

Katniss rushes to the kitchen on silent feet. She fills up a bowl with lukewarm soup and a roll. Then she heads for the door, snagging a large, voluptuous jacket that hangs on a peg next to the door. A jacket too large to belong to anyone in the house.

 

“Here.” She says, thrusting the jacket at the girl and leading her out into the rain. “You can sleep in the goat enclosure, it isn’t too warm but its dry and it has fresh hay. Here, you can leave the bowl on the porch in the morning. Keep the jacket.”

 

“Thank-”

 

“Don’t thank me.” It's more forceful than Katniss means. “Just- Just-” The little girl watches her. Eyes so much like Prim it's almost like she is speaking to her little sister. “Just survive.”

 

~~..~~

 

“Peeta Mellark is coming over here.” Madge deadpans.

 

Madge takes a bite of her chicken salad sandwich and chews thoughtfully as Katniss whirls around to see Peeta sauntering up to her table with Delly at his heels. Katniss turns to glare at Madge who seems completely unconcerned.

 

“Hello, Peeta.” Madge chirps as the pair of blondes sits next to Katniss. She can feel Peeta’s proximity to her like flames. She shifts in her seat so his arm doesn’t make contact with hers.

 

“Hey, Everdeen.” Peeta says with a wink and she can’t look at him without her cheeks blazing so she mumbles an incoherent hello and stares at the table in front of her, not looking up at the chattering crowd around her until the bell rings and she is forced to run to her history of coal attainment class.

 

~~..~~

 

The sun is gleaming, catching the first frost of morning, making everything in town glitter like diamonds. It's a sleepy Sunday morning and Katniss takes advantage of the quiet to slip out onto the front porch with her maths book and a cup of tea. She could live in the stillness forever

 

The cold, the bright, the silence, it reminds her of sitting on the ledge next to Gale, the sweetness of berries on her tongue.

 

And she does live in it for awhile. She pretends she is looking down at that valley, listening to the trill of the mockingjays while Gale sits breathing next to her. Then a crash in the alley shatters the illusion and she nearly spills all her tea in her lap.

 

Rye Mellark comes stumbling into the light, his shirt covered in mud and his nose dripping with blood.

 

He stands in the sunlight, dazed, wiping at his bloodied mouth.

 

Katniss slips back on her silent feet and watches him as a group of merchant boys follow, circling him like wolves. Katniss presses her back against the aging building behind her and bites her lip as she listens to the boys snarling at each other, tossing insults back and forth.

 

From what she could gather, Katniss thinks that one of the merchant boys grabbed at Poppy while she walked down the sidewalk. Now Rye is fighting four boys in the middle of town practically.

 

The few people out and about stop and gawk and Katniss rolls her eyes, it's just a matter of time until the peacekeepers get involved and she doesn’t want to be anywhere around when that happens.

 

She is almost to the apothecary door when she hears the bell above the bakery door jingle.

 

“Come on Calix, four on one is hardly fair.” The raspy voice is too familar for Katniss’s liking.

 

“Stay out of this Peet.” She can hear Rye’s exasperation as the wood steps creak beneath Peeta’s weight. Peeta jumps the last two steps. He stops to examine his brother’s split lip.

 

Calix mumbles something under his breath and the change in Peeta is instinatious. His hand fists and his side and flies up, connecting with the boy’s side with a dull thud. Calix staggers a few feet as the other boys make a run for their new target. Peeta.

 

Katniss Can’t breathe. She grips the door jam so hard her knuckles turn white.

 

Peeta catches sight of her. A grin spreading across his face slowly. She feels the scowl sliding into place as she crosses her arms over her chest. He winks at her. Wearing an expression that hints that he just couldn’t help himself. She watches mutely as Calix creeps up behind him, knocking him to the ground.

 

Good. Serves him right.

 

She arches her eyebrow as he rolls up off the ground and into the fray.

 

It’s over quickly after that.

 

Three of the boys lay sprawled in the mud. None of them belonging to the bakery. Katniss catches the splintering scowl that Peeta gets from his older brother before Rye stomps off.

 

Peeta turns and stares at the bakery door, only now noticing the gaping cut above his eye, his hand swiping at the blood dripping into the dirt.

 

Katniss steps forward, not sure what she is planning on doing exactly. In fact, she isn’t sure what she is doing even as her hand reaches out and pulls him along behind her, across the apothecary threshold and sets him on a stool next to the counter.

 

“Your lucky the peacekeepers didn’t catch you.” She scolds, reaching around him to grab a clean white cloth and a glass bottle of peroxide. She presses it against the cut, watching the red soak into the fabric. “You could have ended up in the stocks for a fight like that.”

 

“I think I would rather brave the stocks than what my mother is going to do when she finds out I knocked Calix out cold.” Katniss feels something wither deep inside of her. His eyes watch her face carefully, she tries to make her face a mask, like the one she wore when she told Prim their mother was dead. The mask is comfortable. The mask is safe.

 

“Katniss?”

 

Her throat constricts, the air is too cold and too dry and her hand drops back down to her side.

  
  


“What?” Her voice is steel.

 

“It’s just a scratch.” He says with a soft smile.

 

All the air goes out of her. Doesn’t he know? Sometimes it isn’t just a scratch. Sometimes you think everything is fine but then something happens that shatters your whole world.

 

“I’ll be fine.” He reassures her.

 

There are dots of blood on his face and a streak of dirt and his shirt is skewed, collar sticking up, brushing his curls and when his mouth tilts up into a crooked grin.

 

She tilts her face down without thinking and presses her lips gently against his. He tastes like blood and when his fingers tangle in her hair she feels something like relief flood her. Like another year safe.

 

She steps back.

 

“See?” He says with a sly smile. “Feeling better already.”

 

Her fingers pull the stiff edges of his collar down and her hands land on his shoulders and his eyes are locked on her face. A breathless moment where the world swims around her, slow and soft. Then his eyes rip away from her and she inhales a great lungful of air.

 

“So, are you running this place yet?” Peeta says, licking the split in his lip and leaning back against the wall.

 

“No, Prim is out with friends. Temperance is out running errands and who knows where Lilah is.”

 

“Well, I appreciate your doctoring.”

 

He stands and Katniss feels herself going red. “I’m not the doctor in the family so don’t thank me just yet. You could be dying.”

 

“I don’t think you give yourself enough credit.”

 

“Well, you could have brain damage for all I know.”

 

He barks out a laugh. “Well, thanks for fixing me up.”

 

“I’ll send you a bill.” She snaps back. “Maybe next time you’ll think twice before getting yourself into so much trouble.”

 

He reaches his hand out, like he might touch her, but he tucks his hand back down at his side and says a quiet goodbye. The moment the door swings shut behind him she slumps against the counter, her hand pressed to her lips. Then, she smiles.

 

~~..~~

 

Katniss eyes the treeline hungrily. Pacing the fence as she watches the sunlight break through the clouds and send shafts of light glittering down like water. The leaves shift in the breeze and she smells the earth, the decay, the impending rain.

 

So she doesn’t think about what the punishment would be when she gives in. She just stares at the mountains in the distance, dark against the sky.

 

“ What are you doing?”

 

Even after months his voice is the same, sharp as knife. She turns to regard him silently. He steps backward like he is afraid of her, but that couldn’t be right.

 

How many years had they walked together in the woods with only silence between them.

 

Why does it feel so wrong now?

 

“I just came-” She isn’t sure what to tell him. She isn’t sure why she is here, it isn’t like she can ever go back, so really at this point she is just torturing herself with the idea of freedom, so close and so far.

 

She turns back to the fence and reaches her hand out passed the fence. “I just miss it, you know.”

 

“You could still have it.”

 

She shakes her head.

 

“ I really can’t.”

 

“Why because some merchant says you can’t.” The word merchant sounds like a sin.

 

“I got Prim-”

 

“You’re a coward.” His voice cuts into the cold morning air. “Hiding behind your sister like that.”

 

“I’m all she’s got Gale.”

 

“What about your darling Grandmother?”

 

He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know the depth of the cruelty that lives between those merchant hands.

 

“All those hot meals made you soft? Or is it the merchant di-”

 

The anger that flashes through her is quick and violent and when she grabs onto his coat and yanks him forward it is so fast he is nearly knocked down. “Don’t talk about things you don’t know about Gale Hawthorne. Stupid don’t look good on you.”

 

“Fucking bitch.” He snarls in her face.

 

Just as quick as it had come her anger disappears like a dandelion frond on the wind. Her fingers unfurl from his jacket and she steps back from him. She tries to swallow the lump in her throat as she presses her fist into her mouth and bites down on her glove to keep from crying in front of him.

 

Never show weakness.

 

Gale taught her that.

 

“It was supposed to be me.”

 

That’s what he says when the silence is too much. She opens her mouth to speak but he doesn’t wait to hear her out he just turns and walks away.

 

~~..~~

 

She walks home slowly. She lets the cold seep through her jacket and sting her face until her she goes numb. She passes by miners heading to the afternoon shift and mothers loaded down with laundry. Katniss slips between the people silently, being careful not to touch anyone.

 

She almost passes by them without even taking notice. She does notice though. The blue skin, eyes open and unseeing. A child and mother, sitting side by side as if they just stopped to rest their feet against the old warehouse wall.

 

Katniss feels something curdle inside of her as dread slithers up her spine and settles in her stomach. She should walk over and close the child’s eyes but touching them seems wrong somehow, like a curse.

 

She walks home with her head down after that.

 

~~..~~

Peeta finds her standing under the apple tree.

 

“Hey?” It's freezing out and she watches the breath escape his lips in a silver mist.

 

“Hi.” Her voice is blank and cool.

 

Peeta waits for her to speak but she doesn’t she just stares at the bakery garbage cans, trying to remember the feeling of rain soaking through her clothes. All she can remember is her mother laughing. Its distant in her mind, from another room, but she thinks she is laughing at something her father has said.

 

“Katniss?”

 

She tilts her chin up in something like defiance.

 

“Are you alright?”

 

His hair glints like gold in the moonlight and she fights her urge to reach her fingers up to tangle them in his curls. She wonders what he would look like, surrounded by the wild, by the lake, on the ledge where you can see for miles and miles.

 

“I’m fine.” It's not a lie exactly.

 

“You should probably go inside-” He has her by the elbow, to guide her back home. His touch breaks something inside of her.

 

“I was in the meadow today.” Her lips peel back into a snarl. “I was walking home and I passed two people that had died, just sat down and- and died.”

 

It isn’t the first time she had seen people dead on the side of the road. She is sure it wouldn’t be the last. But this year had already been so bleak and seeing Gale had left something simmering under her skin, but then he’s good at that. He leaves wildfires in his wake.

 

“I’m not cold.” Her chin quivers and she can’t stop it. “I’m not a cold pers-” Her voice dies in her mouth.

 

“I never thought you were.” Peeta says and his voice holds something quiet but strong.

 

She thinks about Prim, the way she looked in the months after her father died, when her mother was locked in that gauzy world. The way her clothes hung off her and her hollow cheeks or the way she had to stop to heave in air when they walked hand in hand to school.

 

Then Peeta gave her the bread and she survived and Katniss vowed that she would never rely on anyone to save her ever again.

 

“Peeta-”

 

“Your hands are like ice.” She lets him pull her along toward the back door of the apothecary.

 

“Peeta.” He turns to look at her.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Have you ever been out passed the fence?”

 

~~..~~

 

It starts with a lie.

 

One set into place with one of Peeta’s charming smiles. Katniss is astounded at how easily the lie slips from his lips. He flashes his teeth at Lilah and tells her that his family is in the market for a housekeeper and that his mother has been jealous for months at how tidy Lilah’s house is kept.

 

That is how she ends up standing in the small apartment above the bakery with a bucket filled with rags, cursing Peeta’s twist of lip and how he can spin pretty little lies out of nothing but notions.

 

Mrs Mellark watches from the living room like she is taking tea with President Snow himself. Katniss ignores her snide remarks about her coloring and natural proclivities for theft.

 

Katniss bites her lip until she tastes metallic blood. She fears it's completely raw by the time Peeta comes to collect her for lunch.

 

He sweeps her away from his mother with a promise to be back in couple of hours and before she can question him they are standing on the porch wrapped in their coats and scarves.

 

“Well, huntress,” He says. “Lead the way.”

 

She smiles breathlessly when they reach the fence. He eyes it skeptically.

 

“Don’t worry, it won’t zap you.” Katniss promises.

 

“How do you know?” He narrows his eyes at the wire fence as Katniss rolls her eyes and reaches out to grab onto the wire with her fingers. Peeta lets out a cry of dismay as her fingers lock around the bottom wire of the fence and pulls it upward.

 

“It ain’t buzzing.” She whispers, her breath a mist dissolving on the icy air.

 

“Katniss, are you sure we’ll be okay?” He looks at the horizon skeptically.

 

“No,” She says. “But what’s the fun in knowing?”

 

~~..~~

 

They can’t afford to go very far, just passed the treeline but the air is cold and clean and free of coal dust and misery. Katniss feels herself breathing deeper. It feels like waking up, like becoming aware.

 

She twists around as she smiles up at the canopy of trees above her. Drunk on the sound of the birds rustling in the leaves.

 

When she finally looks at Peeta he smiling at her.

 

“What?” She asks, a smile in her voice.

 

“You look so different out here.”

 

The smile slides off her face suddenly, just in time to watch his disappear from his face. She wonders if he will kiss her out here, if she wants him to.

 

She wants to thank him. Katniss knows deep down that he is risking a beating from his mother the same way she risks one from Lilah, and he doesn’t have to do it. She opens her mouth to tell him so but he grabs her hand and tells her to lead the way. His face serious.

 

She pulls her bow out of the old weathered log and Peeta lets out a small breath when she removes the protective cloth it is wrapped in. It gleams in the sunlight, an old friend she has left waiting.

 

“You understand what they would do to me if they found out I had this right?” It is the same speech her own father gave her as soon as she was old enough to come out to the forest with him.

 

“I know.” Peeta says. It is a solemn understanding and solemn never really suits Peeta. Katniss hefts her quiver onto her shoulder and smiles softly.

 

“Rabbit stew sure does sound nice.”

 

~~..~~

 

It becomes clear that she isn’t going to get any hunting done with Peeta around. His footsteps echo and crash around Katniss, setting her teeth on edge. She’s sure every animal from here to the Capitol has heard him. She tries to hide her exasperation but she knows he can feel it radiating off of her like heat.

 

“I’m sorry.” He whispers finally and the tension bleeds out of her in a rush. He has twigs and dead leaves in his curls and his jacket is stained with red mud. “I guess I should leave the hunting to the experts.”

 

He leans down, the feeling of his breath warm against the shell of her ear sends something wild skittering down her spine like a shiver. She thinks his nose might skim her cheek but it doesn’t and its infuriating.

 

She wants to take him to the lake, to find that little stone shack and hide Peeta inside. Keep him from the horrors of the district, somewhere he can be warm and safe and-

 

And-

 

Free.

 

“Katniss-” His voice is stilted and strange.

 

She fumbles with her bag, just to give herself something to do.

 

“We should get back, your mother is expecting us.”

 

Whatever he is about to say he doesn’t and she’s grateful. Because she can’t stop staring at the cut on his brow, red in the cold. They walk in a quiet that is punctuated by Peeta and his heavy footsteps. No words between them.

 

~~..~~

 

At the end of the day Peeta flips the open sign to closed and asks her if she is hungry. She is famished but she tries out her own lies and tells him no when he offers her first choice of the leftovers. She shakes him off with a forced smile and he presses a handful of coins in her hand. A part of the lie.

 

Truth is, she feels she should be paying Peeta.

 

Mr Mellark and Rye went upstairs hours ago and Mrs Mellark went to the barber so it is just Katniss and Peeta left downstairs.

 

“I should get home.” Katniss says, not eager to head back to the apothecary where the air is thick with the smell of dried herbs and peroxide. Where Lilah will take the coins in her hand without a thought. She wants to live in the warm light of the bakery for just awhile longer. It might just be her imagination but it seems Peeta lingers, flour streaked on his cheek and it is a sharp contrast to the boy beyond the fence just this afternoon.

 

“Goodnight.” She whispers finally and he smiles warmly at her.

 

“Goodnight, huntress.”

 

She walks slowly, the coins in her pocket jangling against her hip.

 

She stops just under the old kerosene lamp burning out front of the door and pulls out three coins. Staring at the gold gleaming against her skin. Three coins isn’t much, not even enough to be missed.

 

Without thinking she tucks them into her sock and straightens quickly, looking around to be certain no one saw her stealing her own money.

 

She offers Lilah a benal smile as she hands over the coins, having a hard time to muster the energy for even that.

 

Lilah sniffs at the coins, not even bothering to look at Katniss.

 

“That’s it?”

 

“That’s all she gave me.”

 

“Margaret always has been cheap.” Katniss swallows her answering smile. The bad blood between two women so similar is endless amusing.  Katniss doesn’t linger, afraid that Lilah will smell the fresh air in her braid, the sweat on her skin and just know.

 

But Lilah doesn’t follow her to her room and Katniss tucks the coins between her mattress and the box spring with a self satisfied smile on her face.

 

She tucks herself into bed and for the first time in so long she doesn’t dream about falling. She doesn’t hang helpless in the air. She stands with her feet firmly planted on the ground and stares as the Mockingjays flutter around her like butterflies.

 

Free.

 

~~..~~

 

Peeta stays near the forest's edge while Katniss tries to pillage what she can as quickly as possible. She bags a rabbit almost immediately and she can stop the pleased laugh that escapes her lips.

 

She gathers up wild onions and mint and she even bags a squirrel. Not terrible for midday. When she finally emerges from the woods Peeta smiles and asks if she has rolled in the dust. She holds up the squirrel proudly.

 

“For me?” He proclaims playfully. “You shouldn’t have.”

 

“For your Dad.” She grins breathlessly.

 

His smile falters, its quick but Katniss catches it.

 

“What is it?” Katniss asks.

 

Did she imagine it? The smile on his face is sweet and there isn’t a trace of worry in his features. Just moments ago Katniss was so sure it was there.

 

“Come on, it’s getting late.” Peeta says. “It’s a long walk back to the district.”

 

~~..~~

 

Mr Mellark seems to be in good health. He smiles when Katniss presents him with the squirrel. Tilting his face so he can see the dark hollow where the squirrel’s eye used to be. His eyes bounce back and forth between his son and Katniss.

 

“We got it out by the fence near the seam.” Peeta lies smoothly. “Katniss got him with a stick.” He says and it sounds almost affectionate.

 

“How lucky.” The baker says dryly and Katniss knows he isn’t convinced.

 

“Terribly.” Peeta says drolly and they leave it at that.

 

~~..~~

 

Katniss says she is going to visit with Madge. The lie slides from her lips smoothly and she blames all the time she has been spending with the baker's son.

 

The hob never really changes. It is as raucous as ever and she has to throw elbows to get to Sae’s stall, packed for a tuesday afternoon.

 

“Girlie!” Sae chirps fondly.

 

“Hey Sae.” Katniss sets a coin on the warped wood and is rewarded with a steaming bowl of stew. She pushes a gray blob she thinks might be a turnip around in her bowl as she waits for it to cool enough to eat.

 

“Well, well, well-” The voice has a slight Capitol air to it and even though its pretend she rolls her eyes because she knows exactly who it is.

 

“Fancy meeting such a well respected young merchant girl here down. Descended from on high to mingle in the dregs with the coal dust.”

 

“Piss off, Darius.” She grumbles.

 

“That is no way to talk to a superior officer. I could have you put in the stocks for that.”

 

“You might be an officer but you can’t be superior.” Katniss says, tilting her head and jutting her chin toward the gun on his hip. “Do you even know how to use that thing?”

 

There is a long moment of silence where Darius glares at her with narrowed eyes and she is sure she has gone too far but then he grins and claps her on the shoulder so hard she stumbles forward.

 

“I’ve missed you!” He laughs.

 

“I’ve missed you too.” And she is surprised to find she really has.

 

“Now what is this I hear about you sneaking around with the baker’s son?”

 

All charitable feelings Katniss may have felt toward the young peacekeeper are long gone as she yanks up her game bag and says goodbye to Sae.

 

“You have nothing better to do than gossip Darius? I mean, don’t you have policing duties? Or do you just spend your time braiding hair with the locals, clucking like chickens?”

 

“You aren’t very nice.” He huffs. “Anybody ever told you that?”

 

“You better go report it to your superiors.”

 

“I hear Peeta takes you to the slag heap.” Darius rushes out with raised eyebrows. “And that you take him out in the woods so you can have your way with him.” Katniss feels herself turning three different shades of red.

 

“I’ve heard that too.” Ripper chortles from behind them, her scarred face bright with mirth, like she couldn’t possibly pass up the opportunity to rib Katniss. Katniss makes a noise in the back of her throat and stomps off, listening to the distant sound of cackling behind her. Her bowl of stew long forgotten.

 

~~..~~

 

Katniss trudges up the stairs to the kitchen door of the apothecary and pull off her muddy boots before slipping  into the warmth of the kitchen where Prim is waiting at the table, looking like she is about to burst.

 

“Somebody left something for you on the door.” Prim motions to a neatly folding piece of paper sitting on the table, hopping a little in her seat in excitement, still Katniss makes her wait while she shucks off her jacket and drops her bag to the floor.

 

The roughness of the paper is familiar. In fact, she would know it anywhere. She lifts the paper to look at the neat cursive curls of her name.

 

Inside is an intricate drawing of a mockingjay in a tree, its wings outstretched as if it is about to take flight.

 

“What is it?” Prim practically shouts and Katniss hands it over, feeling slightly stunned.

 

“Oh, it’s beautiful.” Prim crows and Katniss can’t help the smile that tugs at her lips. “I wonder who drew it.”

 

“Peeta, of course.” Katniss says with a roll of her eyes, snatching the paper back from Prim.

 

Katniss freezes as her sisters eyes narrow.

 

“Of course.” Prim says and there is a teasing edge to her voice.

 

“It's just a drawing Prim.” Katniss waves her hand dismissively and makes up an excuse to slip into her room.

 

She really studies the graphite drawing now that she’s good and alone and can see each stroke of the pencil. Katniss sets it on the bed and digs through the desk for a piece of tape,  carefully sticking the edges to the wall opposite of her bed so she can see it. The neat scrawl where Peeta wrote a note in the corner.

 

_Thanks again for tending my scratches. - P._

 

She tucks her legs up to her chest and rests her chin on her knees. Her stomach rolls  and she wants nothing more than to crawl into the comfort of her bed but she can’t stop staring at that bird, freer than she could ever hope to be.

 

XX.XX

 

Madge doesn’t show up to school and as Katniss walks from her Maths class to her History of Coal attainment she listens to the chatter of Poppy and the gaggle of blonde girls that follow after her.

 

“I heard that she was caught with a boy from the seam.” Poppy whispers, clearly scandalized. “I hear she is in the family way and moved to the seam when her father found out.” Poppy mimes a pregnant belly with a satisfied smirk. “I bet she isn’t high and mighty now.”

 

Katniss slows her steps and lets the girls walk around her. She shifts her bag on her shoulder and stares out the window at the drowsy gray morning. She can count on one hand the number of times she was missing from class and they all occurred in their second year when Madge contracted chicken pox.

 

Katniss is sure that Poppy is just a gossip and Madge simply has a head cold. Katniss would know if Madge had a seam boyfriend. Wouldn’t she?

 

The bell rings and Katniss can’t dwell on her friend’s circumstances anymore. When she finally crosses the threshold of the classroom her eyes meet Peeta’s and he smiles gently as she pushes out the chair of the desk next to him,

 

“Running a little late today are we Everdeen?”

 

“Shut up.” She snaps with a smirk.

 

~~..~~

 

“Oh do you think it’s true?” Prim crows as they walk home in the misty rain.

 

“I don’t know Prim.” Katniss answers honestly.

 

“How could you not know?” Prim whines. “You eat lunch with her everyday!”

 

“I don’t know, we don’t talk much and after all it’s not like I ask her about _that._ And since when do you gossip like a goose, Primrose Everdeen?” Katniss is annoyed. All day people shot her looks like somehow she was the one that lead Madge astray.

 

“I’m just curious,” Prim sniffs. “After all, isn’t it just romantic?” Katniss watches as her sister twirls, starry eyed, until she is dizzy.

 

“It ain’t romantic Prim.” Katniss growls, “It’s downright stupid.” Katniss shoves her hands in her pockets and rolls her eyes.

 

“Why do you always have to be like that.” Prim asks. There is genuine curiosity in her voice and Katniss tucks her nose under her scarf to keep herself grounded.

 

“Love doesn’t keep you fed, Prim, you need to remember that.” Katniss stomps up the stairs to the apothecary. “If Madge is in the seam then she isn’t nearly as smart as I thought she was.”

 

“Don’t you ever get tired of being so cynical?” The words are like a punch in the gut. She stares at her sister, even though the words hadn’t come from her. Katniss turns slowly to face Temperance who is standing in the doorway, leaning against her old birch cane. Katniss doesn’t answer, just studies the piece of wood. There are carvings etched in it. Daisies and Lilacs, proud sunflowers and it is just then that she knows exactly who carved them, with patient, loving fingers.

 

Her father.

 

“Do you ever get tired of being a pain in the ass?” Katniss says coldly, brushing passed her aunt and up the stairs in one fluid motion.

 

She drops her bag on the floor next to her empty game bag and opens her window to listen to the drizzling rain. It has the odd effect of calming her.

 

She means to do her homework but instead ends up sitting on her bed, hugging her knees to her chest.

 

~~..~~

 

There is a flurry of activity just as dinner is winding down and Katniss rushes downstairs when she hears Primrose shout. She is just stumbling down the last two steps when she nearly collides with Peeta. He stands there, eyes wide and dark. She may be dense but she knows the look of cornered prey.

 

“Peeta?”

 

Lilah shouts as the front door flies open and Rye and Brandon Mellark drag Mr Mellark through it, a cold draft following them in.

 

“What happened?”

 

Peeta opens his mouth to speak but Lilah yells again and something glass drops to the ground and instead he just shuts his mouth and fixes her with a sad look that she knows all too well.

 

“Katniss!” Lilah shouts. “Clean this up!”

 

Prim rushes around the two of them with bottles and clean cloths in her hand and Katniss turns to get the broom.

 

Peeta’s hand catches hers like a spider web might catch a fly, both gentle and deadly.

 

Her eyes meet his.

 

“It’s okay, Peeta.”

 

“I didn’t know-”

 

His voice catches.

 

“What, Peeta?”

 

“He started to cough and then he just- just fell and-” He swallows painfully. “Is he going to die?” He looks passed her to the back room of the apothecary where his father was lead to the cot Lilah keeps back there.

 

“I don’t know, Peeta.” She says and it might be the first truly

honest thing she has said to anyone since her mother died.

 

His face is pale as milk as he nods.

 

“Okay.” He whispers.

 

“Katniss!” Her grandmother yells. “Get in here you lazy girl!”

 

She flounders, unsure of what to do. She stares at Peeta as he sways on his feet.

 

“Go sit down Peeta.” She says, turning on her heels. He gives her hand one last gentle squeeze and then reluctantly lets her go.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Mama, I lied.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big, giant thank you to my girls. My support system and the most awesome betas a girl could ask for. I'm looking at you Shannon17, Savvylark and W00-ly!

 

  
  


Katniss stares up at the ceiling with a sigh. The house went to bed hours ago and the quiet feels unnerving. Finally, she grabs up her quilt and goes in search of her sister. Prim is sitting on the stairs, a mug of tea in her hands. Prim hands over the lukewarm cup without a word. 

 

“How is he?” Katniss rasps, sitting next to her sister. Prim just shrugs.

 

“Hard to tell,” Prim whispers. “He hasn’t woke up yet.” 

 

“Are the Mellarks still here?” Katniss hands the tea back to her sister. Prim stares down at the swirl of tea leaves at the bottom of the glass like they can tell her the future.

 

“Mrs Mellark and Rye went home but Peeta is still here.” 

 

Prim blinks heavily and sets aside her mug. She looks so tired. Like their mother at the end. Katniss has to look away. 

 

“Why don’t you go on up to bed?” Katniss says.  “I can’t sleep anyway.” Prim whispers her thanks and shuffles her way upstairs. 

 

Katniss pulls her quilt around her shoulders tighter and creeps down the stairs on socked feet, careful to avoid the creaky floorboards she slips into the exam room unnoticed. Mr. Mellark lays on the table, his head propped up on a pillow as his chest heaves. The chair next to the table is empty. She turns and wanders down the hallway, she opens the back door and the icy wind stabs into her skin like daggers. 

 

His hair is illuminated in the yellow porchlight. He looks defeated, slumped over as he is, shoulders curled forward. 

 

“Peeta?” 

 

He looks at her like a child being caught doing something wrong, then his hand flies up to his hair and he smiles at her, tight lipped and bloodless. His eyes are red rimmed and swollen but she doesn’t dare mention it, she just slips forward and sits next to him. 

 

“I needed some air.” He explains. She wishes he didn’t feel the need to. She understands. She remembers the way tragedy can kick all of the air right out of you. 

 

She opens up her blanket. His eyes go wide and he searches her face. 

 

“Come on, it’s cold out here.” She says. He smiles again, the real thing. He scoots over until he is under the quilt, then they sit in silence, watching the stillness of the night around them. Sometime between the aching darkness and the periwinkle dawn Peeta’s head falls onto her shoulder as she is frozen beneath his weight, terrified to move. 

 

“Peeta?” The only answer to her whisper is the sound of his breathing, even and deep. 

Light fills the corners of the earth. The district wakes around them. The world goes on.                               

 

~~..~~

 

Peeta sits on the back porch of the bakery. He is sketching something on the paper she bought him with a nub of a pencil. She watches him through the window as she washes the dishes. He has barely spoken in the week since his father was brought to the apothecary. Monosyllabic words in a subdued voice that makes her want to steal him away to the woods where he can stand at the edge of the lake and sob and scream and no one would be the wiser. 

 

She can’t take him to the woods and even if she could, it isn’t a haven of safety to Peeta like it is to her. No, she doesn’t know what he needs.

 

She dips her hands in the now lukewarm suds and pulls out a cup. “I ain’t paying you to stand there and gawk at my son, young lady.” Mrs Mellark snarks from over the rim of her coffee cup. Katniss mutters something unkind under her breath but turns back to the window. 

 

“Oh, leave her alone Margaret.” Mr Mellark says from his chair near the ovens. Katniss smiles at him, a perfunctory response, there is no feeling behind the gesture. He smiles back. Katniss has to look away, ashamed. “It is such a quiet day.” 

 

“Would you like me to warm up your tea, Mr Mellark?” Katniss asks and he pushes his cup at her gently. 

 

“That would be very kind of you child, thank you.” Mrs Mellark sniffs but Katniss takes the cup.

 

He is still weak and feverish, still has that hacking cough that only means trouble but he has more color in his cheeks, thanks to Prim and the tea she has been forcing down his throat. He looks a little bit stronger everyday. 

 

He gives her a weak thank you when she sets the fresh mug in front of him. “Go get my son, it is getting too cold to sit out there for hours on end.” He says with a wink and she slips out of the door like a ghost. 

 

“You know that I know right?” Peeta says as soon as he catches sight of her and her stomach bottoms out.

 

“What?” She whispers.

 

“I’m not as dumb as you’d like to think I am.” He smiles. 

 

“I don’t- what are you talking about?” 

 

“My Dad sent you. But I’m not ready to go in yet.” The slight blue tint to his skin would suggest otherwise. In just the last few days the temperature has plummeted. The threat of snow hangs in the air. 

 

“Peeta-” 

 

“Come here.” He says, standing to grab her hand and drag her back to the ancient porch swing some Mellark ancestor must have made. She doubts it can hold her weight even as she sits next to him. 

 

He puts the thick, pale paper in her hands and she blanches as she stares at herself- blank eyed, staring out a window toward some distant horizon. It must have been her just moments ago. 

 

“Peeta, its-”

 

It’s a lie. 

 

The girl on the paper has a messy, tangled braid and eyes too big for her face, yes but- she also has these high cheekbone and a wide nose and she looks, well, pretty. Something Katniss could never be. 

 

“I don’t think you see me very clearly.” She snorts, and she hadn’t meant to say it but now that the words are out there is no taking them back. 

 

Their eyes meet in the middle and static crackles around Katniss so suddenly she stands out of fear. 

 

Peeta watches her with eyes blue against the endless gray sky. 

 

“It’s time for me to go back to the apothecary.” Katniss says. 

 

He smiles crookedly. 

 

“Okay, get home safe.” 

 

Now he is just teasing her. 

 

She doesn’t give him the satisfaction of a smile she just stomps across the yard, stooping to pick up a mealy apple from the ground. 

 

She doesn’t turn around to look at him.

 

~~..~~

 

Her hands are frozen by the time she makes it to the apothecary. Prim scolds her for not wearing her gloves and doesn’t she need her fingers to hunt?

 

Katniss changes into her fathers jacket and slips out the door before Lilah can come home and order her around. 

 

She jogs to the fence line and slips under, keeping her eyes sharp for any white uniforms around any of the abandoned warehouses and scraggly bushes that sit stone cold around the fenceline. 

 

She finds her bow waiting for her like an old friend. She is smiling the whole way to the old creek near the snare line where she sometimes cuts holes in the ice and lays wire to catch fish. She is still smiling when she reaches the snare line and the three fat rabbits that wait for her. She is smiling as she reaches for her knife, tucked safely in her boot, to cut them down.

 

“You know what the penalty in these parts are for stealing, don’t you?” His voice is seething. She stops. Moving, breathing, existing. 

 

“Gale?” 

 

“That’s my snare line.” He says accusingly. 

 

Of course it is. He was the one good at traps. He was the one that could lure even the most wary of animals toward her waiting arrow. 

 

“Since when is it yours and not ours?” She says, her words are slow and deliberate. She turns slowly to see him there, rigid and stone faced. His spine is ram rod straight and his face is pinched like he is waiting for her to reach for her arrows. 

 

“Since when did you come back? And isn’t this just the sort of thing that you turned down when you moved to town?” 

 

She has no defense from his words. He’s right. She turned down the unit. She turned him away from her. 

 

He sighs and she watches his breath wisp away on the wind. 

 

“I’ll go.” She says, reluctantly brushing passed him. His hand reaches out and catches her elbow. She freezes in place, waiting in his snare. 

 

“You can have the eastern half.” 

 

“No. It’s yours, your family needs it more.” She insists earnestly. After all he is the one with the family of five to feed. 

 

“I can set more.” He snarls. “Consider it a parting gift.” 

 

The words go sour in her stomach and she doesn’t trust her voice so she nods. Her eyes slide shut.

 

“Bye then, Katniss.” He says.

 

When she opens her eyes he is gone. 

 

~~..~~

 

She sells two of the rabbits at the hob. She buys a bowl of stew and eats it near the stall, the meat is so hot it burns her tongue but she is so hungry she doesn’t even care.

 

“I hear she shacked up with the Hawthorne kid.” A miner says to her right and Katniss feels her ears perk like a dog. She scoots closer and strains her ears. 

 

“Naw, it was Thom Weaver.” Another miner says.

 

“He must be good in bed to catch Madge Undersee’s eye.” Another one says. Katniss slurps up the last of her stew and slips out the door without any of them being the wiser. 

 

Her head reels. She had imagined any sort of fate befalling her friend but falling in love with a miner’s son? Moving to the seam to starve like a rat? Suddenly she is so angry at Madge she could scream. She doesn’t realize where her feet have taken her until she is standing in the middle of the road as the shift whistle at the mine blows. 

 

All the miners are so dirty she can’t distinguish one from the other. She can no longer distinguish one from her father. They all wear the same look of defeat under the black soot. They all walk stoop backed down the road without looking at each other. Except a group of young men toward the back of the crowd that jostle down the road, tired and crusted as the rest, but laughing.

 

“Thom Weaver!” She shouts in their general direction and a few of them sneer some vial things back at her but one stops in his tracks and removes his hat. 

 

“I’m Thom Weaver.” He says. 

 

“I’m-”

 

“Katniss Everdeen.” He says. His teeth are so white against his soot covered skin. “You’re uh- Gale’s friend.” 

 

His name is like a kick in the stomach. “No, I’m Madge’s friend.” She says and his eyes glint in recognition. “Do you know where I might find her.” He swallows but leads her to a small shack that isn’t too far away from Gale’s. He slides open the front door and there she stands, her pale gold hair braided practically down her back.

 

“Katniss!” She cries, enveloping Katniss in her arms. Katniss hugs her back stiffly and in a few moments they are sitting in the cold on the porch. Each of them with a cup of weak mint tea.

 

“What the hell are you thinking!” Katniss practically wails at her friend. 

 

Madge looks down at her cup like she is trying to read her future in the tea leaves. “Katniss, I-” 

 

“How- when?” 

 

“Katniss, it just happened.” Madge says with a shrug.

 

“Are you really pregnant?” 

 

Madge sighs.

 

How could she? Katniss thinks. Tempting the odds with a little life while she is still reapable herself. Katniss wants to shake her. Scream. Cry. 

 

“Katniss-” 

 

“Madge!”

 

“I love him.” 

 

Out of everyone in twelve she thinks Madge might be the most honest. The most straightforward and Katniss has always appreciated it, now it just makes her heart split in half.

 

“I know that means something scary for you, Katniss but- I’d rather live here with him than anywhere else without him.” 

 

“You would die with him. Starve in the cold? Wait for the mine to crush his spirit and then actually crush him? Is love worth your life?” Katniss doesn’t know when her voice turned to a hiss but it has. 

 

“Yes.” Madge says simply. 

 

The seam is silent save for the shrill shriek of a lone mockingjay somewhere far off. It’s the only noise as a few empty seconds tick by. Katniss shrinks under the word. A simple answer to her violent questions. 

 

“Katniss, don’t you have someone that makes your life better just by breathing? Someone that is worth more than comfort?” 

 

Katniss thinks of her mother, hanging limply in the early spring air. 

 

“I can’t afford it. I have Prim to think about.” Katniss snarls as she scrambles back off the porch as if she will catch whatever has Madge has caught. 

 

Madge blanches back. 

 

“That’s a shame.” Madge whispers.

 

Katniss has no defense and nothing to say.

 

~~..~~

 

Katniss flops the raccoon down at Greasy Sae’s stall and orders a bowl of watery broth. It’s a torrent of wind and water outside and the hob is empty, save for the few souls that braved the wet to come for a trade. 

She is left alone for the most part. Ripper teases her but without her teeth her speech is garbled Katniss can barely understand a word and she just rolls her eyes as the woman winks her one good eye in her direction.

 

She is just finishing her soup when Greasy Sae pipes up that Katniss has obtained a little shadow.

 

Katniss whirls around to see Raven standing at the entrance of the market staring right at her.

“Can’t seem to stop collecting strays huh Girlie?” Sae chortles. “First the Bakers kid and now her.” 

 

Katniss grabs up her game bag and stomps over to the little girl.

 

“You know, I kill things for a living.” Katniss grumbles from between clenched teeth. The little girl stumbles backward and stares up at Katniss with wide eyes. Eyes deep and dark blue as the petals of an iris. It stills something deep within Katniss, like she has seen them before somewhere else. Maybe in a dream. Or a dream of a dream. 

 

“I’m looking for work.” Raven says stubbornly, straightening her spine and diving inside of the dimly lit building. 

 

Katniss watches her little back as she stares apprehensively at the various stalls, the stooped backed vendors, the young men that rove in packs around a corner, sectioned off with moth eaten curtains. 

 

“And what are you going do exactly?” Katniss asks. 

 

Raven looks up at her from underneath her lashes, her lank hair falling into her eyes. And it’s the look in her eyes, forlorn and a little stubborn that has Katniss reeling back because the little girl looks so much like her own mother she could scream. 

 

A shift in the howling wind and the whole warehouse groans. 

 

Katniss feels her own resolve weaken. She slips her fingers in her coat to brush the cool metal of the couple of coins in her pocket. 

 

“Come on.” Katniss says, grabbing the collar of the little girls jacket and leading her to Sae’s stall, where she has a bowl of soup waiting on the counter. Katniss glares at the woman but she just winks and smiles, looking like the cat who got the cream. 

 

Katniss watches the girl wolf down her soup, flipping a coin through her fingers idly. 

 

“Who does this one belong to?” Sae asks softly. 

 

“Nobody,” Katniss sighs. 

 

“I belong to myself.” The little girl pipes up, pushing her greasy hair out of her face. Her jaw tightens as she glares at Katniss. This makes Sae laugh. 

 

“So you do, little one.” She pats the girl on the head as she moves on to a miner that sits down at the counter.   

 

“What time do you have to be at the home?” Katniss asks. The little girl eyes her warily, her feet hanging off her barstool. Her toe pokes out of her shoe as she swings her legs idly. 

 

“Five.” Raven says from around her spoon. 

 

“What time do you leave?” 

 

“Six in the morn’n.” 

 

“Be at the fence at six thirty.” Katniss says, already rolling her eyes at herself and that pesky little clench of her heart at the sight of the little girl, too small for her own good. “Make sure you aren’t followed.” 

 

Katniss ducks back out into the rain before she can do something completely crazy, like take Raven home with her. 

  
  


~~..~~

 

It is still dark when Katniss peeks out of her window. The rain has eased but everything glitters in frost as Katniss slips inside of her father's jacket and down the stairs to the kitchen. 

 

She is careful not to turn on any lights as she fumbles to the sink, reaching for the tin they keep the tea in.

 

“Who might you be?” A man rasps from behind her. Katniss mental catalogues every male voice she can remember and comes up blank. A slither of cold dread slides into her stomach as her nails claw at the counter. She spies the block of knives near her right hand. 

 

“Depends on who you are.” Katniss says dryly. The man laughs and it's a slurred sound. Katniss can smell the white liquor radiating off him. 

 

In one fluid motion Katniss reaches for the knife and whirls on the man as he sits calmly watching her from the kitchen table like he has melded himself to his chair. He is tall and wiry with yellowing skin and wide, deep set eyes. His brows furrow at Katniss and he reaches for the bottle of white liquor that sits between them. 

 

“You look disappointed.” He says with a laugh and when his lips twist upward Katniss notices the shiny pink scar that slices across the bridge of his nose. “You really must be Thea’s daughter.” 

 

The knife clatters to the counter at the sound her mothers name. The man leans back in his chair and appraises her. His blue eyes narrowing in a way that feels cruel. 

 

“Now that we know who I am, who the fuck do you think you are, sitting at my grandmother's table like you are.” Katniss snarls. This makes the man laugh in her face.

 

“Lot of nerve claiming a table I’ve made lass, but I’ll let it go considering you’re family and all.” 

 

“Family?” The word stumbles out of Katniss. 

 

“I’m not surprised that they haven’t mentioned me.” He eyes the bottle in his hand, the clear liquid sloshing against the glass. “Lilah prefers not to remember she has a son.” His voice sounds almost bored. 

 

Katniss meets his eyes in the middle of the room that suddenly feels too small. “I’m Bram,” The boy says, pushing the brim of his porkpie hat up with his thumb. “My mother is the only one that calls me Abraham.” 

 

Katniss eyes him warily as she reaches for gamebag that hangs limply from a hook by the door. 

 

“Where you off to so early?” He asks, his voice slurred. 

 

“Some of us work for a living.” Katniss says drolly, not bothering to wait for a response before slamming the door behind her. 

  
  


~~..~~

 

They walk the treeline together. Katniss can feel Peeta’s proximity even through her jacket and gloves. She clutches the flask of tea she brought and pretends she can’t feel his eyes studying her face carefully, like she is a bomb about to detonate. 

 

“How can I have an uncle I know nothing about!” She raves, her lip curling in distaste. “I’ve lived with Lilah six months.” 

 

“Seems he has always been more interested in card games at the hob than his family or at least that is what my Dad says.” Peeta says as Katniss rolls her eyes. She stares off at the distant mountains, a smoky mauve in the blue dawn as she mulls over Peeta’s words. Trying to understand a world where she cared about something, anything, more than her sister. It seems impossible.

 

She focuses on unraveling the wire snare and resetting it carefully. She can feel Peeta watching her back but she doesn’t dare turn to look at him, afraid of what she might find in his eyes. Sympathy or worse, pity.

 

“We all just do whatever we have to Katniss.” 

 

That is a sentiment that sounds suspiciously like Gale. 

 

“Like abandon your family for white liquor?” She snarls, fingers fumbling in the cold. “Like beating your children?” Like killing yourself and leaving your daughters alone in the world? She doesn’t dare breathe out that last sentence. No that secret stays locked deep inside of her flinching heart. 

 

“Katniss, the world is a hard place.” Peeta says in a sensible voice. “Even harder for some.” He ends on a quiet whisper that implies he is speaking about her. She lets go of the snare and stares down at her hands, red and chapped with cold. 

 

“I guess.” She mumbles. 

 

“Katniss-” Peeta says, grabbing her shoulder as she tries to pass him by. 

 

“Peeta, it’s fine.” She whispers. But nothing is fine. Not really. She feels something brushing her skin. It might be the wind. It might be a ghost.

 

~~..~~

 

Katniss brings Peeta with her to the hob. A Merchant in the coal soaked warehouse isn’t entirely unheard of but Peeta is a Mellark and his mother’s attitude toward the Seam isn’t exactly a secret. People watch them as they walk warily, like they are waiting for an outburst or a scene but Peeta sticks to her side and talks politely with vendors as she trades. 

 

When they finally stop at Sae’s in the afternoon they are both famished and Peeta insists on buying her a bowl of soup. She bristles a little when he passes over his own coin for her bowl but doesn’t say anything because Sae is watching her with amusement. 

 

They eat in a comfortable quiet. Passing a piece of tesserae bread between them. Katniss ignores the stares from a group of miners as Peeta bumps his shoulder against hers. 

 

“Hey,” Peeta whispers. “Everything alright?” 

 

Katniss swallows, glancing at the pack of men. Winter always brings out the worst in people, the men are bony, sallow, dark eyed with hunger and they sneer at Peeta, who, while thinner than he was just weeks ago, clearly isn’t in danger of starving to death anytime soon. 

 

Katniss does her best to ignore the quick swoop her stomach does when she notices one face in the group in particular. 

 

Sage Whitfield is Gale’s next door neighbor and they are cut from the same, threadbare cloth. Sage stares at Katniss like she has just dined with the President himself. The boys slowly move forward, spreading apart to circle the pair like wolves around a injured deer. 

 

Katniss keeps her eye on Sage, clearly the leader, as he swaggers up to her and plops down in the seat next to her. 

 

“Hi, Katniss.” He says. 

 

She glances at Peeta, expecting to see the same friendly expression he always wears, but his eyes are narrowed at the boy sitting next to her. Maybe he is more perceptive than she gave him credit for. He doesn’t say anything, in fact, if she wasn’t a keen hunter she might not have seen a change in him at all, but she can feel his hackles raise as he sets his bowl off to the side. 

 

“Hi Sage.” She says flatly. 

 

This makes him flash his teeth at her. “How are you liking the merchant life?” Katniss sets her spoon down gently. A tension rolls through her and it feels like any loud noise or quick movement would set something in motion, something she couldn’t stop. 

 

“Frightfully boring.” She says as Sage cracks a half smile. 

 

“Must be nice.” He says, his skin is stretched so tight of his sharp cheekbone she fears his smile might snap. His friends appear suddenly, all around them, and Katniss can feel Peeta stiffen next to her.

 

“Katniss.” Peeta whispers. “We better be getting to the seamstress stall before she leaves for the day.” Peeta is pale as milk in the dim light and it must be a shock to see his skin next to hers in the gray light, because Sage leans forward, lip curling. 

 

“So is this how you fill your stomach?” Sage sneers. “Taking up with merchants?” Katniss forces herself not to cringe back at the implication. “It’s worse than going to old Cray.” 

 

“That’s enough.” Peeta’s voice is steel as he steps in front of Katniss, as if to shield her from the words. “Apologize to the lady.” 

 

Katniss opens her mouth to tell them both exactly where they can shove this pissing contest when Sage lurches forward, latching onto the front of Peeta’s jacket with his bony fingers.  

 

“I won’t be bossed around by no merchant.” Sage snarls. The group around him hums approval, like a swarm of bees it all blends with the sounds of the district around them. A drop of rain in a torrent. 

 

Katniss steps backward, on the pretense of leaning against the stall behind her, her boot resting on the stool as she leans down, stretching to reach the knife tucked in her boot. 

 

“Don’t be causing no trouble at my booth Sage Whitfield.” Sae says. “Unless you want your Mama to find out you been fighting.” She means the boxing matches the peacekeepers bet on every Saturday night. 

 

“Wouldn’t dream of causing any trouble for you ma’am.” Sage says, a respectful lilt in his voice, yet his hands don’t let Peeta go. “Just reminding this boy here where he belongs and that’s back home, tied to his mother's apron strings.”

 

The pack around them laughs but the change in Peeta is instantaneous. His eyes, normally the same color as the spun sugar in the sweet shop window are dark as storms, and the well practiced smile has slipped off his face. 

 

He steps backward but Sage pulls him back, his hand tangling into a fist and rocketing forward. Peeta shoves him back and in one fluid motion has one of the boys flipped onto the ground. 

 

Coal dust flies around them as Katniss stands stunned. In fact she has never heard the Hob so quiet as she and Peeta stand in the aftermath, the group looking at Peeta in a way Katniss couldn’t possibly read.

The heavy weight of the stares land heavily on her shoulders as Sage stands, his shoulders squaring as he narrows his eyes at Peeta. Then he smiles and spits at Peeta’s feet. 

 

Her pulse throbs in her neck as Peeta smiles at Sage. A beat of pregnant silence. Peeta winks.

 

She doesn’t have time to react as Sage surges toward Peeta and Peeta steps out of the way lithley, Sage landing hard against the stall next to her. 

 

“Come on, Katniss.” Peeta says, grabbing her by the cuff of her jacket gently. 

 

“Yeah,” Sage sneers, already back on his feet. “Take your merchant girl, and be on your way.” 

 

She doesn’t even have time to process what he has said, one moment Sage is standing there snarling in her face, the next he is in the dirt, clutching his nose as blood seeps from between his fingers. 

 

“Come on, Katniss.” Peeta says again, leading her out into the miserable gray afternoon. 

  
  


She rips her arm away from his grip and stumbles down the path, ignoring the way his eyes burn a hole between her shoulder blades as she plows ahead. Finally Peeta has had enough and grabs her elbow to whirl her around to face him.

 

“Listen, I’m sorry-” He whispers, his voice pleading. 

 

She stops abruptly, staring out at the seam around them. A dog barks far off, a stoop backed man has caught a rat and is peeling the meat from the bones. A few children sit huddled together on a porch. 

 

“I didn’t mean to cause trouble.” She isn’t really mad at Peeta, or she is? She _ is _ mad at Sage and Lilah and Mrs Mellark and her mother, maybe she is mad at the whole world. So much anger, bubbling in her blood, she both fears and welcomes it. 

 

She glares up at Peeta, coal dust smudged across his cheekbone, and all of that molten anger rushes out of her in a instant leaving her hollow. 

 

“It’s fine Peeta.” She sighs. 

 

Winter has just begun and she is already aching for the warmth of spring. She needs sunshine, the noises in her ears. 

 

She glances up at the pregnant clouds and sighs. 

 

“It just isn’t fair.” She whispers, more to the sky than to Peeta.  _ Nobody said it would be _ . A nasty voice inside of her sneers. 

 

“No, it isn’t.” Peeta agrees quietly. Her eyes meet his suddenly and the look on his face cuts her to the quick. 

 

“Will it always be this way?” She asks, too tired to hide the way her voice catches. 

 

“Maybe.” He says. 

 

She slips her hand into his and squeezes gently, wishing for some of his solid strength. Peeta reaches up and brushes the hair away from her eyes and Katniss has a fleeting image of her father doing the same to her mother, the thought is like a knife into very soul. 

 

“Maybe someone will come along with the power to change the world.” He says, smiling softly.

 

And in that instant she can see it. A softer world where the games don’t exist. A world where she is safe to love. A world where Peeta and his children could be safe. It’s a idea as indulgent as sugar. 

 

She glances up at the sky just as the first fat flakes of snow begin to fall.

 

~~..~~

  
  


Temperance is waiting for Katniss as she slips inside. Katniss spent the morning tromping through the snow, resetting snares and is now not just wet but sour with only an empty game bag to show for it.

 

“Where have you been?” Temperance growls the second Katniss shucks off her coat. 

 

“Having tea with Effie Trinket.” Katniss snaps. “What does it matter?” 

 

“Lilah played cards with Margaret Mellark today.” Temperance hisses. “Imagine her surprise when she found out you weren’t there today.” 

 

“Where is Madam president anyway?” Katniss whispers, a wary edge creeping into her voice. 

 

“Upstairs with a headache.” 

 

Katniss drops her game bag to the ground. 

 

“Be careful, Katniss.” Temperance hands her a cup of tea. “If there is one thing Lilah can’t stand, it’s being made a fool of.” 

 

“I’ll be fine.” Katniss says. She really believes it too, after all, she has fought off bears and wild dogs and told her sister their mother was dead. Lilah is nothing in comparison. 

 

“You aren’t as invincible as you think you are, Katniss.” 

 

“I’ll be fine.” Katniss snarls.

 

“I thought that too.” 

 

~~..~~

 

The snow has just started to stick to the sodden earth when it happens. Katniss doesn’t see it but she hears about it in the hallways of school the next day. A seam girl, just twelve years old, was caught stealing from the building where the tesserae is kept. 

 

She is drug to the justice building and stowed away in its bowels. There are rumors she is being tortured, that she was flown to the capitol in a hovercraft, that the peacekeeper that caught her killed her outright. 

 

Katniss doesn’t know what happened, all she knows is that the peacekeepers swarm the school like ants and stand at each entryway, watching with dark eyes. Katniss does her best to keep her eyes down and notices most everyone else does the same. The chatter in the cafeteria is subdued, kids seam and merchant alike go straight home after school. No one lingers in the hallways. 

 

Until Saturday.

 

Katniss is busy brushing through Prim’s tangled locks when the television flickers to life. A scroll across the screen demands everyone into the square at precisely six. 

 

Prim meets her eyes questioningly as the family gathers up their jackets. Prim takes up Katniss’s hand and they walk together in silence, joining up the sea of people just outside the door.

 

A stage is set up outside the justice building and Katniss feels her stomach bottom out at the sight of it. 

 

“Katniss, what’s happening?” Prim whimpers, a hysteric edge to her voice. The crowd rolls forward and Katniss is pushed along with the current, clutching fiercely to her sisters hand. 

 

The noise hits her first. The distant stomp of black boots against paving stones. Instinctively she shoves her sister behind her, as if that would protect her in this crowd. 

 

The screen behind the stage flickers to life and President Snow sits stoic in technicolor before them. 

 

It happens to someone else. Distantly, like a dream.

 

A girl is drug before them, small and slight as a baby bird. She could be ten years old. Snow hisses in a cool voice that this young girl has been convicted of stealing from the state of Panem, a crime of treason, a crime that carries a sentence of death. And just when Katniss shuts her eyes, sure the next noise will be the pop of gunfire the president states that it is by the mercy of the Capitol that the girl will survive the night. Her sentence commuted. 

 

Katniss pries her eyes open. The little girl looks so little, shaking between two peacekeepers. 

 

“Greer Hadley is sentenced to twenty lashes.” The president says and the television goes black.

 

The crowd stands still, disbelieving, in the wake of the blackness. Katniss shares a look with her sister. 

 

Katniss wishes the little girl the quick death of a bullet, because twenty lashes will surely kill her. Slow and painful. 

 

In the guise of mercy.

 

The girl squeaks as she is drug forward and tied to the post and Katniss tries to hide her sister against her, pressing her hand against her sisters ear to muted the anguished cries. 

 

After the fifth lash the girl goes still and the crowd crackles. A few miners near the front yelling for the peacekeeper to stop. 

 

The whip hits the girls back, slapping wetly with her blood and the crowd surges forward, taking Katniss with it. 

 

A bottle is thrown and it hits a peacekeeper in the side of his helmet. Katniss sees them, marching two by two, hands clutching their guns to their chests.

 

“Come on Prim.” She tries to drag her sister backward but the crowd is so dense and there is no give left. She might as well have run straight into a brick wall. 

 

There is nowhere to go. She clutches her sister and curls over her. The last thing she sees as her eyes slide shut are the peacekeeper raising their guns in an unnatural uniformity.

 

“I love you, Prim.” She sobs.

 

The pop of gunfire but it never comes but the anguished screams are there and when Katniss finally gathers her nerves enough to open her eyes she wishes she didn’t because the fog is just rolling over her and it hits her square in the face. She gathers up her shirt and shoves it over her face but just a fraction of second too late.

 

Once, her hand brushed a nettle leaf. It feels like that only all over her body. Her eyes instantly water as she crumples to the ground, opening her mouth to breath but only inhaling more of the stabbing smoke, her lungs scorching.

 

She can’t stop the strangled sob she emits, even though she doesn’t want to scare Prim. She can’t seem to gather her wits. She can’t do much of anything except try and shield Prim. 

 

And scream.

 

~~..~~

 

She dreams of falling.

 

Helpless.

 

~~..~~

She is surrounded by static. A grayness. A fog. She tries to reach through it but she feels so lost. She isn’t sure which way is up let alone the way out. 

 

“Katniss?” The voice is comforting. After months of silence Katniss is surprised that she can remember it so clearly. 

 

“Mama.” Katniss isn’t a fool. She knows she is dreaming. Still comfort floods her veins and spreads through her limbs. 

 

“I’m still here baby.” 

 

“Mama, I lied.” Katniss whispers. The words fall from her and are swallowed by the emptiness around her. 

 

Her mother is silent for a long time. Katniss feels like she is eleven again, waiting breathlessly for her mother to return. 

 

Starving. 

 

“It’s okay, baby-” Her mother whispers. “So did I.” 

~~..~~

 

She wakes in a dark, starless night. 

 

“Don’t move.” Someone whispers in the dark. She tries to tilt her head but her skin is on fire and shuts her eyes as they begin to leak. 

 

“Mom?” She croaks. The voice whispers and she knows instantly that it isn’t her mother. 

 

Her life comes flooding back in. 

 

“Primrose?” 

 

“I’m here.” Her sister says, her voice like music. 

 

“What happened?” 

 

“Peacekeepers.” Prim whispers. Something cold is laid over her eyes and she whimpers in relief. “They gassed the crowd.” 

 

“Are you okay?” Katniss rips the cloth from her face to look at her sister in the dim candlelight. Her face is splotched angry red, the blisters puffed and raised. Her eyes are swollen but she is whole and alive.

 

“You shielded me from the worst of it.” Prim whispers. “Now lay still.” The cold cloth is back and the whine of her relief is a pitiful noise. 

 

Katniss lets her eyes slide shut and wishes to forget, oblivion, but there is no mercy left for her. 

 

She ends up in that dull grayness between sleep and wakefulness. She hears the screams distantly but she can’t be sure if it is a dream or the horror of reality.

 

~~..~~

 

Katniss wakes to a cold, gray morning outside her window. It has stopped snowing but the gray invades everything and Katniss can’t do much beyond lay in a lump on her hard mattress. 

 

She thinks it is afternoon when her door creaks open and then he is standing there like sunlight itself. 

 

“Prim said you were still in bed.” Peeta says, his voice soft. She pulls the covers around her shoulders and stares out the window.

 

“That little girl?” Her voice is brittle.

 

“She’s gone.”

  
  


Katniss knew without him saying it but she needed to hear it. She needed the slice of the words down her spine like a razor to remind herself that she is still alive.

 

Her eyes slide over to Peeta. He seems to have fared better than her but worse than Prim, he has blisters all over the backs of his hands and his voice is barely a rasping whisper.

 

“Peeta, are we going to die here?” She asks.

 

“I don’t know.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man you guys. Chapter 5 ends here, on a cliffhanger. Because it turned into a monster and I had to split it in two, so you get a cliffhanger and I am very sorry for that. Good news is that Chapter 6 is just about done and might be posted as early as tonight/tomorrow depending on if I decide to pick at it anymore. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter. Be sure to let me know what you think! As always thank you guys so much for reading this little fic of mine. It means the world to me!!!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is how she feels now, like the world is cracking beneath her feet, like she about to be swallowed whole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to my ladies! Shannon17, Savvy, W00-ly 
> 
> You guys are the most amazing ladies ever!

The district goes quiet. Everyone burrows deep into their homes, only leaving when they must. No one lingers in the hob to gossip. Children don’t play in the streets. The entire district goes silent and Katniss doesn’t mind a bit. She goes to school, she keeps to herself and at the end of the day she sits by the fire with a pile of darnings and tries not to think about the Greer Hadley and what fate might have befallen her.

 

Katniss isn’t sure where her uncle has run off to and she doesn’t dare ask, she does wonder if it’s better for him if he stays gone. She thinks of Temperance and her leg, the shiny scar across Bram’s nose and wonders where her mother's scars were? If they were just the kind that stays safely hidden on the inside. She eyes Lilah, sitting in an old rocking chair, her eyes shut, snoring up a storm and gets the feeling in her gut that no one has walked away from her unscathed.

 

~~..~~

 

It’s a week before New Years and Katniss ventures out and she almost immediately runs into Peeta, mucking out the pig pen. He gives her a subdued smile and sets down his shovel, wiping his brow with shirt.

 

“Hi, Peeta.” She says softly. A piglet squeals around his feet as Katniss hops the chicken-wire fence and leans on the wooden pen. “Having pork chops for New Years?” She jokes, jutting her chin toward piglet as he snorts around Peeta, looking for a handout.

 

“Go easy on the lad,” Peeta says softly. “We lost his mother this morning.” Peeta scoops up the pig and rubs between his ears like he is a puppy. Katniss sees a bit of Prim in the action. She rolls her eyes as he pulls out some sugar from his pocket and the pig eats it greedily.

 

“That’s bad luck,” Katniss whispers. “Losing your sow in the middle of winter.”

 

Peeta shrugs, setting the squirming piglet down in the mud and hopping the fence.

 

“We’ll make do,” He watches the piglet as he snorts around the lean to shelter where two other piglets sleep, unsatisfied with his brothers and sisters, he walks the fenceline, letting out cries.

 

Peeta reaches his hand out and rubs the piglet again, making soft, soothing noises as he does but the pig can’t be comforted. Katniss thought that there wasn’t a creature in the world Peeta couldn’t console.

 

“Peeta.” She says. He rocks back on his heels as she shoves the toe of her boot in the mud. “It’s just a stupid pig.”

 

Peeta turns back as the piglet cries out for its mother.

 

“It isn’t stupid.” Peeta defends in a kind but firm voice. “I’m just not what he wants.”

 

~~..~~

 

Katniss brings Raven out into the woods and helps her set a small snare line near the eastern edge of the woods, near a hole in the fence, close to the home and shaded by a thick wall of trees that will keep her hidden from Peacekeeper and predator alike.

 

“This is your snare line.” Katniss says. “You need to keep an eye on it everyday.”

 

“Yes ma’am.” Raven says with wide, serious eyes.

 

“Be careful not to leave your catch too long, it’ll attract dogs.”

 

“Yes, ma’am.” Raven says again. Pushing her greasy hair out of her face.

 

“Quit ma’aming me to death, you know my name.” Katniss snaps.

 

“Yes Ma’a-” Katniss flings a withering glare at Raven and the girl shrinks back against a tree. Katniss sighs and leans down to look at her.

 

“You hungry?” Raven nods and Katniss pulls two cinnamon buns she stole from the kitchen this morning. Raven’s eyes go wide as saucers as she stares hopefully at the plain paper wrapping.

 

She had planned on them each having one but the look on Raven’s face has her handing them both to the little girl as she frantically rips open the bag.

 

Katniss also pulls out a flask of tea and takes a few sips to warm her chest before handing it over to Raven who drains it in a few gulps.

 

After the food is gone, Raven looks up at Katniss with eyes dark and fearful. “I’m sorry, Ma- Katniss. I didn’t mean to eat all your food.”

 

Katniss forces down a smile. “Never mind it, Raven. I got plenty.”

 

“From Peeta?”

 

Katniss feels something bristle at the sound of his name. The way he affects her, even when he isn’t around, is maddening. It makes her more cross than she means to be.

 

“What do you know about Peeta Mellark?”

 

Raven is all smiles now that she has a full belly.

 

“Ada Horowitz says your sweet on him. Says he is sweet on you too.”

 

“Ada Horowitz can mind her own business.” Katniss grumbles, feeling her ears going hot at the implication. Katniss feels like she is red as a tomato and judging by the way Raven cackles, she must be.

 

“She ain’t wrong though.”

 

~~..~~

 

Katniss is sitting with the days mending, her hair drying by the fire. She is listening to Temperance and Prim talk amongst themselves, mostly about Temperance’s childhood. She tells Prim all sorts of tales, so vivid that Katniss can almost see the three pale children racing around the backyard on a spring day.

 

Katniss pretends she can’t hear the words but inside she is trying to picture her mother as Temperance has painted her, a free spirit.

 

“That’s about when you’re father showed up in his old, leather jacket, holding two jackrabbits by the ear--”

 

Katniss’s head snaps up. Prim watches the fire with moony eyes.

 

“He marched right up to her and when Althea went to get Pa he said they weren’t for Pa, they were for her. Only your mother would think that rabbits as a gift was romantic.” Temperance is smiling, a rare occurrence in and of itself.

 

“What color dress was she wearing?” Katniss asks in a timid voice and it feels strange, like silk over her tongue. If there was one thing Katniss wasn’t - it was timid.

 

“Red, I think.” Temperance whispers wistfully.

 

Katniss really tries to see it. A girl in a red dress. A boy with a pair of jack rabbits. How could it be the same two people who faded to coal dust before her very eyes? The only thing left of them a stained photograph?

 

Katniss remains stoic through the rest of Prim’s relentless questioning. Katniss won’t begrudge her sister any stories, especially the ones of their father. After Prim starts yawning Katniss tucks her into bed, singing the valley song and when Prim drifts off Katniss slips out the door and down the stairs. She corners Temperance in the kitchen.

 

“What happened to your leg?” Katniss isn’t letting her get out of it this time, she crosses her arms over her chest and blocks the door. Temperance sighs, a muscle in her cheek twitching.

 

“It was an accident.” Her voice catches. “I think.”

 

Katniss eyes the cane at her aunt's side. The flowers that were delicately carved into the birch wood. She imagines her father sitting by the lake in the last dregs of summer sunlight, carving the soft wood with the same delicate care he saved for things like fashioning his bow.

 

“I tripped down the stairs. I- I was up and I shouldn’t have been. It was my own, stupid, clumsy fault.”

 

In those rushed words Katniss can see it happen. She can see the fear in her aunts eyes as she tumbles helplessly, landing in a heap.

 

“Is that what she told you?” Katniss whispers. “Or is that what you tell yourself?”

 

Katniss isn’t sure which is worse. If Temperance told herself sweet lies to keep herself from thinking her mother a monster or if Lilah convinced her of it after hearing her daughters leg snap.  

 

“My mother left you here with her?” Katniss hisses. “After she did such a thing?” It is something Katniss could not tolerate. She would die before leaving Prim with Lilah alone like her mother did with Temperance.

 

“Don’t act so high and mighty Katniss. Your mother was just a girl herself.” The words are quiet, stilted.

 

“I would never leave Prim with that woman!” Katniss insists vehemently. “She must’ve been more of a coward than I thought!”

 

“Katniss? What are you so angry about? That your mother left me? Or that she saved her own life?”

 

Once when she was only eight, Katniss and her father went hunting in the dead of winter. They spent the night at the lake, frozen solid and she had been so excited to skid around on the slick, flat surface.

 

“Don’t go out there Katniss, it won’t be solid enough for weeks.” Her father had warned but she didn’t listen and snuck out after he was asleep.

 

fifteen feet out she heard the crack of the ice in the distance and froze with fear. slowly and carefully she slid her feet across the ice that groaned beneath her and she felt her breath hitch in her chest as the ice caved, just feet from safety.

 

This is how she feels now, like the world is cracking beneath her feet, like she about to be swallowed whole.

 

“You don’t know what it was like.” Temperance insists. Katniss is back in that frigid water, unable to catch her breath. “She would have died if she stayed here.”

 

“It doesn’t make it right.” Katniss says.

 

Temperance snorts indelicately. “Sweetheart, you weren’t there, you don’t know.”

 

Katniss turns and walks out. Temperance can defend her tell the cows come home, it won’t change how she feels and it won’t fix that leg, it won’t bring her mother back to them.

 

It won’t change the past.

 

Her mother had been mastered the art of disappearing when she was needed the most. Clinging to her own shadows. A cavedweller.  

 

~~..~~

 

New year’s dawns bright and clear and cold. Katniss wakes before everyone else and slips out the door and down the street. She has one mission today and that is to get Prim an orange for New Year, just like the one she had shared with her father so long ago.

 

It might have been a lousy year but seeing Prim light up would almost be worth all the pain in the world.

 

She glances toward the bakery but keeps herself on the path. She is sick of hearing the whispers that follow her like pack of dogs, not that she cares really, she is just sick to death of hearing Raven and Prim repeat them back at her like mockingjays.

 

Katniss opens the door to the grocer. A place she rarely visited when her mother was alive because the grocer doesn’t look kindly on seam folk but his daughter is nice enough and now that Katniss has been claimed by the apothecary, he is all sugary words.

 

Every eye on the place lands on her as she slips in the door a few linger on her face, like a group of girls from school, as they whisper behind their hands.

 

“Hi, Katniss.” One of them giggles. Katniss rolls her eyes and grabs a box of matches for something to look at. She thinks she could spend all day in here looking at the ribbons and trinkets to drooling at the cans of meat and candies.

 

“Ignore them.” Someone says from behind her and she nearly leaps out of her skin. Katniss whirls around to find Madge standing there in a calico dress, her hair hanging loose and straight down her back. “They have air for brains.”

 

“Hi, Madge.” Katniss says, her voice hitching. It isn’t often she is startled. “You look really good.”

 

“Fat you mean?” Madge says with a smile, her hand flying to the small bump of a stomach.  “I feel like I can never get full these days. Thom has been making flapjacks just as fast as I can eat them.”She says, setting her hand on the slight swell of her stomach. Her face twitches toward the girls nervously as they dissolve into a fit of giggles.

 

“They got air for brains.” Katniss reminds her and they walk together while Madge tells her about how she is adjusting to life in the seam. Katniss tries to tell her helpful things, like that she should can as much as possible and salt any meat they get so it lasts. Madge tells Katniss all about their new home near the west entrance of the mine and how hard Thom works and how she finally learned how to mend a roof. Something that would make Althea Everdeen roll over in her grave.

 

Katniss is content to let Madge talk, after all she has never been so chatty but Katniss knows how lonely she must be in the seam alone while Thom works all day.

 

“I’ve been offering work as a seamstress, but haven’t had much luck.” Madge whispers.

 

Katniss examines Madge. She is pale and drawn, her dress hanging off her.

 

Once when she was hunting with Gale, a mother bear had gotten her paw trapped in one of his many snares. She was near the end by the time they happened upon her. She had a snapped bone. She lay on her side keening as her cubs, frantic with hunger had begun eat away at her flesh.

 

She doesn’t end up buying Prim the orange but she buys canned meat and beans for Madge and promises to bring her more. Madge hangs her head, her cheeks burning with shame.

 

“I’ll pay you back.” She says softly. Somewhere the girls giggle. Katniss turns to glare at them with all she has inside of her and they slink away.

 

Katniss promises that they will come up with something. She walks back home empty handed.

 

~~..~~

 

Katniss slips inside near dark, shucking off her jacket and boots, she slips up the stairway silently on socked feet. It had been a good day in the forest and while she hadn’t gone very far she had collected a fat raccoon that she traded for a bolt of fabric in a shade of crimson that would look lovely as a dress for Prim, with enough left over for a shirt.

 

She opens the door to her room.

 

It happens fast. One moment she is cracking the door and the next white, hot stars are exploding behind her eyes as she lays in a heap on the floor, clutching the side of her face.

 

“Where have you been?” Katniss can’t get enough air in to speak. She clutches her cheek as her back arches up off the floorboards.

 

“I was at the bakery!” Katniss says once her breath comes back to her. She wasn’t, of course.

 

Something hot drips into her eye and she touches it gingerly. Her fingers come back crimson.

 

“You were out with the youngest, weren’t you?” Lilah sneers.

  


Peeta wasn’t at the bakery? This is news to Katniss. She had seen him briefly in the morning and ate lunch with her but she hadn’t seen him since.

 

“Margaret was looking all over town for the boy.” Lilah snarls. “I swear you will be out on the street if you end up pregnant.”

 

Katniss stares up at the ceiling, waiting for Lilah to finish her tirade. “The bakery backed out of one marriage, I won’t have them ruining another Warren reputation.”

 

With that she slams the door behind her. Katniss lays there for a long time, trying to understand what Lilah had said. What girls reputation? Who was promised to the baker?

 

She rolls up on her side and crawls to her bed. She sits at the edge for a long time, trying to find the gumption to walk herself across the hall to the bathroom and clean up the blood but she can’t seem to bring herself to move. In the end, it doesn’t matter, the blood clots to her face and besides she is tired. She shuts her eyes and dreams of nothing.

 

~~..~~

 

When she stumbles out of bed blue light is flooding in through the open window. She walks over and peers down into the yard. The district is quiet, in a serene way. She can see Peeta in his yard, feeding the piglets. He leans down and scratches the runt between his ears as he munches a bit of apple.

 

It hadn’t mattered in the end whether Peeta was what he wanted or not. He took what was offered to him in the end, just like the rest of them.

 

~~..~~

 

“Holy odds, Katniss!” Prim howls.

 

“What?” Katniss grumbles, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes in an attempt to keep out the light. It helps a little, alleviating some of the pulsing behind her eyes. Her head still throbbed something fierce.

 

“What happened to your face!” Her sisters fingers are blessedly cool as she clutches her chin.

 

“I-I fell.” Katniss says weakly.

 

It is the same type of lie Temperance told her. The one Katniss had sneered at. Katniss sucks in a lungful of air and looks at her sister, eyes blue as the sky, narrowed in suspicion.

 

“You’ve been awful clumsy since we moved into the apothecary.” Prim says, hands on her hips.

 

Katniss has nothing to say to her sister, she tries to slither back to her room but Prim grabs her by the hand and marches her down to the main floor. And fills a basin full of warm water.

 

The two sisters sit in silence as Prim works, washing the blood off her face and stitching up the cut, small but fierce, just above her eye.

 

“What was it?” Prim asks in a firm voice, one that Katniss has never heard her use before. She fidgets, not wanting to lie but not wanting to tell the truth either.

 

“I-I-”

 

“Katniss Everdeen.” Her sister snarls. “What did she hit you with?”

 

“A belt buckle I think- I don’t know.” She feels her cheeks flood with heat. She wants to disappear from her little sister, looking at her as she is.

 

“Katniss.”

 

“If you don’t have any nice words Prim then please shut up.” Katniss finally snaps. Her voice cracking.

 

Her sister doesn’t say anything else and she fears she might cry so she looks at her bare feet instead.

 

Then her sister is hugging her. Hard. Her hair tickling Katniss’s cheek.

 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Prim asks and from the safety of her sisters arms she finally lets the dam break.

 

“Prim, if they kick us out, we’ll have to go live at the home.” Katniss can’t let that happen. This apothecary is her sisters birthright, what she was born to do.

 

“What about you?” Prim pleads tearfully. “Katniss, she could have killed you!”

 

“Never mind it, Little Duck.” Katniss whispers, tugging on her sisters braid. “I’ll be okay as long as I got you.”

  
  


~~..~~

 

Peeta meets her out in the yard and she clutches her bag closer to her side. His eyes zero in on the cut above her eye. Prim and Peeta share a look that has Katniss wondering if they have been discussing her behind her back.

 

“What?” She snaps, feeling like skin stretched tight over bone.

 

“Nothing.” He says with a shake of his head, but his eyes search hers like he is waiting for her to do something crazy.

 

Prim whispers something at Peeta, too low for Katniss to catch and runs to catch up with a gaggle of seam girls at the side of the road. Effectively leaving Katniss alone with the one person she couldn’t hide from.

 

She waits for him to demand answers from her but he never does. He walks next to her with his hands jammed into his pockets. She almost starts screaming at him just to alleviate the silence.

 

They are almost to the school when he suddenly grabs her hand and leads her into a small grove of trees. Once they are safely hidden he is pressing her against the trunk of a tree, his hands grip her face like she might disappear as he presses his lips against the feverish cut on her brow.

 

“Peeta?” She isn’t sure what she is trying to say exactly but it doesn’t matter anyway because his lips capture hers and his hands slide up to tangle in her hair and she is breathless, like she has fallen from a great height and is waiting to hit the ground.

 

When he finally steps away from her she misses his warmth, like the steady heat of a fire on a wet day.

 

“Katniss I--”

 

“Peeta, don’t--” She begs, “I just--” She tries to think of a lie to tell him, something neat and tidy that sums up all the loose ends. The lie doesn’t come and besides he would never believe it. She slumps against the old scrub oak he has her pressed against.

 

“Where were you yesterday?” She asks, horrified at the jealous tone that colors her words.

 

“Why?” Peeta asks in a teasing tone. Stopping cold when he catches sight of her face.

 

“I was at the hob.” He says finally. She blanches, unsure if she heard him correctly. She thought they were done with the black market when Sage Whitfield ended up with a broken nose.

 

“What on earth were you doing?” Katniss asks.

 

He opens his mouth to answer her but then the bell goes off and they are late for first period.  He grabs her hand as they make a run for the sagging brick building.

 

~~..~~

 

She doesn’t have time to get any answers from Peeta during school and he avoids her at lunch, leaving her alone with only Delly for company.

 

She walks home in the cold with Prim, kicking rocks across the schoolyard. Rory and Vick and Posy crowd around her like kittens around a milk pail, peppering her with questions about merchant life, making no mention of their older, grumpier brother.

 

They head off down the road to the seam as Katniss and Prim duck down an alley and come out in the bakery’s backyard.

 

Prim gives her a look but doesn’t say anything when she breaks away to rap smartly on the bakery door.

 

Rye Mellark swings the door open.

 

“Hi there, Katniss.” He says, tucking his tongue to his cheek.

 

“Is Peeta here?” She says, peering around him.

 

“Nope.” He leans against the threshold he quirks his eyebrows at her. “Why would you want to know where my little brother is?”

 

She wants to shove him backward and make a run for it. The way he looks at her, like he knows something she doesn’t.

 

“Where is Peeta?” She snaps.

 

“How should I know? I thought he’d be with you?”

 

She turns and walks away before he can make anymore assumptions about her and his brother.

 

She heads to the hob next, weaving through the packed warehouse to a place she never was brave enough to go before. A place her father would never allow her. Behind those curtains.

 

Ripper gives her a look as she tears the curtains out of her way. The smell of tobacco and home brewed ale invades every nook and crevice. It is dark and a few men near the back turn to glare at the light. It takes her a few blinks to adjust her eyes and by the time she does someone has hold of her elbow and is dragging her backward.

 

“Let me go.” She snarls.

 

“What are you doing here?”

 

“None of your business.” She scowls at her uncle as he tries to push her back out into the light.

 

“It is my business! I can’t have my niece gallivanting around in the dark, causing trouble where I work now can I?” He slurs, grabbing the lapel of her jacket and running his thumb down the front of it, like he is remembering something.

 

“Go home, child.” He says at last.

 

“Have you seen Peeta?”

 

“The Bakers kid?”

 

“You know another Peeta?”

 

He whirls on her.

 

“Now why would he dare set foot here? He’d be a sore thumb in a place like this. Being the good little merchant boy he is.” He rambles, winking in her direction.

 

“Is that how you got that scar?” Katniss snarls, fed up. “By being a good little merchant boy?”

 

He removes his porkpie hat and bows low.

 

“I’d never do such a thing.”

 

He is swallowed by the crowd. Katniss is left to push and prod her way through alone.

 

~~..~~

 

Katniss thought that it wouldn’t be so hard to find one merchant boy in the sea of dark but she walks around for what feels like hours, trying to jump to see over the crowd of people waiting to place their bets on the dog fights and the crowd of leering men waiting for the woman of ill repute or the men circling the fighting ring.

 

You can find anything in the hob.

 

Katniss is about ready to give up as she catches sight of him, curls damp with sweat as a tall, lanky seam man  tries to set his nose. Blood trickles crimson against his pale skin.

 

“Peeta Mellark! I’ve been worried sick!” She hollers, not caring who hears her, even as a few men turn to stare.

 

“Why?” He says with a wink. “Look at me, right as rain.” Even as he says it she knows it’s bullshit. His voice is nasal and he has a piece of paper stuck up under his lip to help stop the bleeding.

 

She pushes the man helping him out of the way with a sweep of her arm.  Tilting his head up so she can examine the swelling.

 

“Prim can give you some willow bark for the pain.” She mumbles, glaring at the man next to Peeta, blinking when he grins at her.

 

“Sage Whitfield?” She snarls, looking between the two men, wondering if she’s going insane.

 

“Hi Katniss.” Sage says politely. “How are you?”

 

“How am I?” She laughs, incredulous. “I’m fine. Peeta on the other hand.”

 

“I’m fine.” Peeta pipes up.

 

“Your nose is broken!” She cries. “You are not fine.”

 

“Katniss-”

 

“Bare knuckle boxing? What are you thinking? You got a death wish?”

 

She wants to reclaim the words as soon as they escape her lips, the way he is looking at her.

 

“I was thinking about the two notes a fight I was offered.” He holds two paper notes in front of her face. She snatches them away to look at them. During her time as a merchant she had never dealt with paper notes. They were mostly reserved for Peacekeepers and town officials. Citizens only had coin.

 

“Peeta,” She whispers as she hands him the paper back. “Peeta, you could be hurt.” She whispers. “You are hurt.” She corrects, her fingers running across the tender, bruised skin under his eye.

 

“Katniss, anyway we look at it I am going get swung at, I might as well get paid for it.”

 

His fingers brush the livid red welt above her eye. Her eyes flutter shut under the weight of his touch.

 

“At this rate, Katniss, by the end of summer I could buy Rye out of his apprenticeship. He doesn’t want it anyway. When my father retires I’d have the bakery, you could come live there, no one would hurt you ever again.” She thinks his voice cracks, she can’t tell.

 

“Peeta,” She feels like she has lied to him somehow. Like a handful of stolen kisses have made promises she has no way of keeping. Perhaps Peeta has made assumptions. Maybe she has been careless. “I can’t do that.”

 

“Why not?” He says with a crooked little smile.

 

“Peeta, I’m never going to marry.” She makes her voice hard and practical, the voice she used when her mother was in one of her episodes. “I can’t give you a life, _like that_.”

 

“Whoa, who said anything about marriage?” Peeta says, reaching out to brush her arm with his thumb.

 

“You said you wanted me to come and live at the bakery?”

 

 

"I never said anything about marriage," Peeta raises his eyebrows and smiles crookedly. A joke. He is having a laugh at her. She ought to grab hold of her bag and storm out of here. Yet, there is something in his eyes, a shadow darkening the powdery blue. Katniss sees it the smile on his face is wooden. He clears his throat and she starts back as if he is a reared snake. 

 

"I can't afford anymore debts." The instant the words come out of her mouth she regrets them. "I mean, you've already done so much for me." Katniss whispers lamely. 

 

"This isn't about owing Katniss." There is a sharpness to his voice. It is like shrapnel hitting her skin. "I thought you would know that by now." 

 

"But what happens when-" Her voice dies as her throat constricts. Why is it so hard to say? 

 

"What happens when?"

 

"When you find someone you _do_ want to marry?"

 

"What makes you think anyone would _want_ to marry me?" He says wryly. She snorts. As if he doesn't know what girls whisper behind their hands about him. She grinds the toe of her boot on the floor. 

 

"Yeah, you are pretty obnoxious." She mutters. She grabs hold of her braid and looks at her split ends, just for something to do.  She ignores the sudden swarm of bees in her stomach and the quickening of her blood and that pesky blush creeping up her neck. 

 

"Yeah," He says. His hand slipping into hers. "Then there is that."

 

 

~~..~~

 

From this spot on the ledge she can see the entire barren landscape laid out before her. The trees stripped clean of their leaves, the fine layer of pristine snow that weighs down the yellowed grass. She shifts the weight of her quiver to her right shoulder and takes a deep shuddering breath.

 

She wonders if she should feel the weight of Gale’s absence around her.

 

She waits for it to hit her but it doesn’t.

 

“We should probably head back.” Peeta whispers.

 

She looks at him, face bloodless in the cold, eyes tender and bruised. He stands tall out here, his gentle hands reach for her.

 

“Can we stay out here for just a little longer?” She asks.

 

“Alright.” He whispers back. She turns suddenly and he looks like he has been caught staring. His cheeks flush and he takes a step backward. Doesn’t he know? She is a hunter and after years she has perfected the chase. She grabs ahold of his jacket and yanks him forward. He smiles as she presses herself against his heat greedily.

 

Out here she feels brave. She pulls him down to her and covers his lips with her own. He smells like the woods, and cinnamon and baking bread. Life itself. His arms wrap around her waist and lock her to him.  His fingers tangle in her braid and her pulse thrums in her neck.

 

Reluctantly she pulls away. Her hand locks with his and they walk slowly. He points out different winter birds and she names them, just to see the smile on his lips as he echoes the name back to her.

 

Out here it is easy to pretend. She sees the future she will never be allowed. It cracks her heart in two.

~~..~~

 

She hums to herself as she chops carrots for dinner. Katniss takes the cutting board and dumps them into the pot of broth. She flips back around to grab the onion.

 

“What has gotten int-” Temperance grumbles

 

“Shhhh-” Prim hushes reverently. “She’s singing.”

 

~~..~~

  


Katniss leaves a thermos of soup on Madge’s doorstep. She knocks and then flies off the porch steps into the shadows. She watches as candlelight flickers out the open door and Madge stoops down, lifting up the cup to her nose and inhaling. Her blue eyes flit out to the street as she scans the empty road.

 

“Katniss?” She whispers.

 

Katniss doesn’t say anything, just makes a run for town.

 

~~..~~

 

Her thumb slips and she cuts the pad of her finger. She drops the knife she was using to chop mint leaves and stuffs her finger in her mouth, twisting to watch Peeta trudge up the drive. His curls fluttering in the wind. He has his neck craned down, his lips twitch upward as he says something.

 

Katniss takes a few sideways steps and flings the door open. Peeta is lifting Raven out of the snow and placing her gently on the porch.

 

“Ah, good morning.” He says pleasantly.

 

“What are you two doing out here in the cold?” Katniss grumbles, reaching out to wipe something sticky off Raven’s cheek. Raven ducks out of her grasp and glares at her. Peeta must find it amusing because he flashes a fond smile at Raven, reaching his hand out and ruffling her dark hair.

 

“Thanks for the advice half pint.” He whispers as Katniss narrows her eyes suspiciously.

“What advice?” Katniss asks.

 

Peeta just winks as Raven cackles.

 

“Nothing for you to worry about,” Peeta says with a wink and wave. He turns and starts walking toward the bakery door.

 

Katniss turns her attention on little Raven.

 

“What was that all about?” She demands. Raven shrugs her shoulders.

 

“He wanted dance lessons.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

  


~~..~~

 

“I’d kill someone for some strawberries.” Madge says, patting her stomach. “This little one loves them as much as I do.” Katniss drops a cup of tea in front of her friend and sits across from her.

 

“They aren’t in season.” Katniss says regretfully.

 

Madge looks better than when Katniss last saw her. Her skin has lost that sallow tint to it and her wrists and elbows no longer protrude grossly. Katniss has been sneaking her mugs of broth when she can, Prim loads it with different herbs that Katniss can’t even pronounce the name of but Prim promises that they will help with the baby.

 

“Um, have you thought of any names?”

 

“It’s still early.” Madge says with a sad smile.

 

“Right.” Katniss whispers. She stares out across the yard as a sinking feeling fills her, from the roots of her hair to her fingertips.

 

“Do you think it will- that it’ll-” The words stick to the sides of her throat thickly. She stares at her hands, red and chapped.

 

“No,” Madge whispers. “I don’t think so, but these things do happen. If it happens to me I want to be ready.” A steely edge has crept into her normally mousy voice.

 

Katniss flits her eyes to her friend. She can’t help but think about how angry she had been at the thought of Madge leaving her cushioned life in town for a frozen shack in the seam. How she was sure it meant death for the pale, golden girl.

 

As she looks at the girl sitting at her grandmother’s table, Katniss is hard pressed to tell her it was the wrong move. She no longer walks with her shoulders hunched. She smiles and her eyes dance around the room, even hungry as she is.

 

Katniss shakes her head and grinds her teeth together.

 

This is just the prelude to the end. Even those that freeze to death go through a period where they think they are warm.

 

Safety is still an illusion in twelve.

 

~~..~~

 

Lilah is upstairs with a headache. Katniss uses the time to her advantage. She dresses in her trousers and slips out the door, lithe as a shadow. She jumps the porch steps and hikes her bag up onto her shoulder.

 

The sky above her is dark. She might only make it to the treeline before dusk, still she can’t help herself, she has been craving fresh air for days.

 

“Katniss!” Peeta launches himself off the bakery porch and makes a run for her, nearly sliding in the ice. She waits patiently for him to climb over the chicken wire fence and jog up to her, breathless and red with cold.

 

“Uh, hi.” She mumbles to the slush at her feet.

 

“Hey, I uh- I came to warn you.”

 

“Warn m-”

 

Something cold and wet hits her neck and slid down her back. Katniss yelps and whirls around.

 

“Raven!” She shouts.

 

The little girl jumps out from behind the apple tree and lobs a snowball directly at Peeta, snickering as she makes a dive for a snow covered bush.

 

“See,” Peeta flashes a grin at her. “I tried.” He makes a face as a ball of ice is flung, hitting the porch behind them.

 

“Clearly there was no stopping her.” Katniss deadpans.

 

“None, whatsoever.” Peeta says, his breath a mist between them. Katniss smiles, even though she is cold and wet. She has this breathless moment where she is wonders if she is doomed to feel this way forever. Being in the presence of Peeta is like waiting for the rug to be pulled out from under her. Like she is sure that she is crashing toward the earth, sure she will hit the ground, sure that she will be badly hurt.

 

Then she does hit the ground. So suddenly the air whooshes from her lungs. She is staring up at the sky with this heavy weight on top of her. She can catch her breath. She is warm.

 

Then her eyes focus and are met by Peeta staring into them. Eyes that make her ache for spring time.

 

“You weigh a ton.” Katniss groans.

 

He laughs. That makes her miss springtime too. He shakes his shaggy curls and cold droplets of snow hit her suddenly feverish skin.  His lips are so close to hers and she can smell the mint of his toothpaste.

 

“Hey, be nice,” He whispers against the shell of her ear. “I saved your life.” Something in his voice sends shards of light dancing down her spine.

 

He must be made of fire. She can feel the warmth of him flickering against her like candlelight. Gentle and lazy. She sucks in a breath and places her hands against his chest.

 

He looks down at her hands, his eyes going wide.

 

 _Do you feel it too?_ She wonders.

 

Her pulse quickens when his eyes drop to her lips. She lets out a noise, part plea, part prayer. Every inch of her pulled taut.

 

Her fingers tangle in his jacket.

 

“Um, I’m sorry-” His eyes flit away and she can’t explain it but she suddenly feels hollow.

 

He stands up slowly and wipes the snow from his sleeves. He offers her his hand. She stares at it but she makes no move to take it.

 

“Peeta, I-” She swallows painfully.

 

“I’m sorry.” He says again. She takes his hand. She waits for the pain of electricity. The sudden jolt that would stop her heart altogether. It doesn’t come.

 

“Katniss!” Raven squeals.

 

“Don’t jump on me with those muddy boots!” Katniss scolds. “All this noise you’re making it is a miracle that Lilah hasn’t come out and cuffed us all!” Raven shrinks back and Katniss glares at Peeta, who just looks on sadly. She tries to make her face as stern as possible but it is hard when Peeta reaches out and slips her braid through his fingers. It is even harder when Raven slaps a fistful of wet slush against her hip.

 

The forest is long forgotten as Peeta slips his hand into her own. They walk with no destination in mind, Raven at their heels. They ignore the whispers as they walk. Katniss, for once, finds herself happy to be led along the path, she even has nothing to say when Peeta leans against her suddenly and presses a gentle kiss against her lips when no one is looking.

 

~~..~~

 

There is a stillness between the crash of thunder and the flash of lightning. Katniss clings to her sister, listening to her ragged breathing.

“Katniss?” Prim asks groggily.

 

“Hmmm?”

 

“Do you love Peeta?”

 

Katniss freezes.

 

_Crash._

 

“It’s okay, you know- if you do.”

 

_Flash._

  


Katniss feels her heart stumble and slow.

 

“I don’t know Prim.” Katniss keeps her voice steady. Even though her insides are as cold as ice.

 

Her sister rolls over to face her.

 

_Crash._

 

“You aren’t mom, Katniss.”

 

Katniss balls her sheet in her fist at the mention of her mother. She plays a game of trying to remember the woman she was when she was small. The wisp of a woman with a laugh like sunlight. All she sees is the woman with the empty stare that would sleep on the floor and looked like a crushed flower.

 

 _Flash_.

 

_What if she is just like her?_

 

The words hang off the edge of her tongue but she doesn’t dare speak them, not even to Prim.

 

~~..~~

Three sharp raps at the back door. The sound stills Katniss to her very core. She remembers it from every backdoor trade she ever did. Slowly she slips forward, peering through the frosted glass and curtains to the dark figure on the other side, long and lean with that cocky tilt to the head.

 

She flings the door open and shuts it behind her. He is so surprised that he nearly stumbles off the porch.

 

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Katniss hisses.

 

Gale purses his lips, his eyes narrow but he keeps quiet for a beat. Katniss knows him well enough to know that he is seeing the expensive cut of her dress and the way her hips no longer jut sharply against the fabric.

 

“I-I-”

 

She has never seen Gale so flustered. His hand comes up and scrubs his hair.

 

“You shouldn’t be here.” She mumbles. She reaches for the doorknob.

 

“It’s Posy.” He says and the soft lilt of his voice stays her hand.

 

That is how she ends up walking down the muddy road to the Seam, her pockets full of herbs and her mouth bone dry. The silence around her is suffocating and she watches the road, pretending that she can’t feel Gale’s eyes boring a hole in her skin.

 

Relief floods her when Gale’s clapboard house comes into view and Hazelle flings open the door and throws her arms open. Katniss doesn’t even think twice before she walks right into them.

 

“Oh Girlie, we’ve missed you around these parts.” Hazelle whispers tearfully.

 

“I’ve missed you too.” Katniss says into Hazelle’s chest. Hazelle finally releases her and holds her out at arms length.

 

“Can you do anything for my girl?”

 

Katniss swallows hard. Last spring, just before her mother died a pox had swept through the Seam. Katniss had thought it was over.

 

Katniss swallows and steps inside. The house smells just as she remembered it, woodsmoke and pine and just a faint hint of mustiness. There is something else here too, something sharp and acidic, vomit and ginger root.

 

Posy looks so small under her blankets. She takes in a ragged breath as Katniss sits gingerly at the end of the couch. The rash on the little girls face is livid and a couple of the blisters has popped, leaving scabs. Katniss sighs and looks up at Gale. He stands at the edge of the room with his hat in his hand.

 

“So, is there anything we can do?” Gale asks. A muscle ticks in his neck. Katniss can hear his teeth grinding together.

 

“Give her the herbs Prim suggested.” Katniss says, touching Posy’s tiny little foot. “Then pray it’s enough.”

 

“You’ve never been the praying kind.” Gale accuses.

 

Katniss can barely find the energy to shrug.

 

“What else is left to do?”

 

~~..~~

 

Snow clings stubbornly to the rooftops and clings to the frozen mud. It’s a bitterly cold day, the kind that winds its way inside of you and penetrates your bones, leaving you stumbling and breathless and aching.

 

Katniss sloshes through the slush grimly. Trying to remember the feeling of the sun on her face. The heat of summer from beneath the skin of the lake.

 

“Hey!” Peeta steps out of the bakery quickly, ripping his apron off as he does. The door slamming shut swallowing the sound of his mother’s voice echoing behind him.

 

“Hey,” Katniss echoes back.

 

“Where are you off to?” Peeta asks, leaning against the railing casually, like it isn’t freezing outside. She furrows her brow in his direction

 

“What?” He asks as she juts her chin toward his thin t-shirt.

 

“Aren’t you cold?” She asks, burrowing down in her own jacket. He shrugs as if he isn’t concerned.

 

“It’s like a thousand degrees in there-”

 

His voice is drowned out by the roar of trucks in the distance. Katniss stares helplessly as a convoy of trucks appears, rattling down main street, completely unperturbed by the district citizens who all stop to stare.

 

“What’s going on?” Katniss asks, craning her neck. When she glances back at Peeta he has gone white as a sheet.

 

“What is it?”

“Peacekeepers.” Peeta whispers just as Katniss catches sight of a white uniform.

 

Her heart drops into her stomach.

 

“Why so many?” Katniss whispers but her voice no longer feels like her own. The trucks keep coming with no end in sight. All around the square people are dropping whatever they are doing to watch the line rumble toward the barracks.

 

“Do you think it has anything to do with Greer?” At the sound of the little girls name people turn to look at her. Like it is one of the forbidden words. Like she has committed a crime.

 

“Katniss get inside.” Peeta says stiffly, grabbing her elbow and corralling her through the door and for once she lets him with little arguing, though she does grumble something about him being bossy.

 

The entire room is still and silent as the precession of trucks rumbles toward the seam. Katniss has never heard the district so quiet.

 

“Peeta?”

 

Peeta’s hand reaches for hers, giving her a small reassuring squeeze.

 

~~..~~

Katniss corners Darius.

 

“What’s happening?” She snarls as he grabs up a glass of cider from Rippers. The red headed peacekeeper runs his hand through his hair and blows out a hard breath through his nose.

 

“Beats me,” He says with a shrug.

 

“The new recruits was as much a surprise to us as they were to you.”  He takes a long swig from his cup.

 

“Aren’t you on duty?” She snarls.

 

Darius shrugs and gestures toward the clusters of white uniforms dotted through the crowds.

 

“So are they.” He says with a wry grin. Katniss tries to smile back at him but there is a sense of foreboding coiling inside of her like a snake.

 

~~..~~

  


Katniss watches as Lilah and Temperance slip out the front door. Lilah clutches Temperance for balance as they make their way slowly down the icy walkway. Katniss watches them as they are swallowed by the night, waiting until she is sure they are gone before grabbing up her jacket.

 

“She’s going to find out that you’re sneaking out, eventually.” Prim pipes up from the hallway. She’s leaned up against the doorframe in her pajamas, her toes curled and her braid spilling over her shoulder. The sight of her sister looking so fragile makes her heart clench. “She’s going to hurt you.” Prim’s voice cracks.

 

“Don’t worry, Prim.” Katniss dismisses softly.

 

“But-”

 

Katniss cuts her sister off by striding forward and clasping her face between her hands.

 

“Don’t worry, Duck,” Katniss whispers. “There is many a slip between a cup and a lip. She can’t hurt me if she can’t catch me.”

 

Katniss tries to ignore the way her sisters face falls at the words. She tries to ignore the way it makes her stomach twist even as she is pushing her way through the crowded warehouse. She tries to remain invisible as she ducks under the curtain and stepping up to the makeshift ring that has been made out of milk crates and plywood.

 

She spots him immediately this time, golden curls gleaming in the low light. His white shirt is dotted with dried blood, most likely from the cut above his right eye. She is just trying to shove her way toward him when he shucks his shirt and jumps the rickety railing that Sage is leaned against. Sage lets a high pitched whistle and the crowd goes silent as Peeta and the other man in the ring are introduced.

 

She sucks in a deep breath that tastes tart and stale. Even here amongst the crowd of young miners he looks golden and strong and so dangerously breakable. Someone knocks into her and she stumbles forward, hitting the plywood with a dull thud.

 

Their eyes meet from across the ring. His head cocks and his lips part. She can’t make out what he says over the whoops of the men but she thinks it is her name. Then he grins.

 

What an ass.

 

She has half a mind to leave if only her feet would uproot themselves from where they are firmly planted and her eyes could unlock themselves from Peeta as he straightens his spine and focuses his eyes on his opponent, shimmering with mischief and something else that Katniss can’t name but it leaves a bad taste in her mouth and a knot in her stomach and she knows she is stuck watching for better or worse.

 

Sage whistles again and Peeta is suddenly all business. His shoulders straighten and his gaze locks on the man across from him. A man older and broader which is a feat for the seam.

 

Katniss finds herself holding her breath as Peeta steps forward and they shake hands. The man leans down and whispers something in Peeta’s ear. Katniss strains, pushing against the railing trying to hear but Peeta just smiles crookedly, his answer swallowed by the shouts of the men around her.

 

She is helpless as the seam man swings, his knuckles connecting with Peeta’s cheek. Her breath hitches in her chest as Peeta staggers, shaking his head. Katniss can feel her heart climbing up her throat as Peeta’s head hangs.

 

She is close to tears, wondering if she can climb the railing and pull him out of there without bloodshed. A man next to her shakes his head and yells to a companion that he knew better than to bet on a merchant.

 

This must be some horrid nightmare, Katniss concludes. It is nearly impossible to reconcile this boy with the one that threw her that bread so long ago. They look nothing alike, well aside from the bruised flesh.

 

It happens like a flash of lightning. Peeta lifts his head and rushes forward, fist connecting with man’s side. Katniss can hear the weight behind the blow as the man stumbles forward, knees buckling as Peeta swings his right hand up and hits the man hard and quick in the cheek, splitting the skin and sending droplets of blood and spit flying.

 

Peeta turns his back as a whistle is blown and strides slow and steady toward her. She heaves in a desperate breath as he grins.

 

“Hey, Everdeen.” He says. His fingers reach out and brush the tip of her braid. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

 

“Well, you are brain damaged.” Katniss grumbles. He chuckles and wipes at the bruise on his cheek with the back of his hand.

 

“Mellark, get over here.” Sage drags Peeta back to his corner and hands him a flask of water, which Peeta takes a swig of then promptly dumps on his head. Sage whispers something but Peeta just shrugs and jogs back over to her, his curls wet and matted to his head.

 

“Don’t you need to get back to pummeling that man?” Katniss says dourly, crossing her arms over her chest.

 

He rolls his eyes skyward but he grabs hold of her hand and places it directly on his bare chest, just above his heart. She feels the steady pounding against her palm. It’s so startling she wrenches her hand back.

 

“Don’t die.” She mumbles to shoes, sure that everyone in the place can see the blush staining her cheeks.

 

“I might,” He says. Her eyes fly up. His grin is crooked as he winks at her. “Maybe I wouldn’t if I had a kiss for good luck-”

 

She has a mind to hit him herself.

 

“Guess you’ll die then.” She snarls.

 

He laughs. A bright, happy noise. It sounds so out of place in this dark, coal soaked warehouse.

 

She ignores the way her stomach swoops at the sight of his broad shoulders as he walks toward the center of the ring.

 

“Insufferable.” Katniss grumbles to herself as Peeta is knocked to the ground, but she is still breathless as he stands, his arm flying out and his fist knocking the other man out cold with one blow.

 

She finds herself swept along with the crowd as his arm is lifted over his head in victory. The man next to her is smiling and everywhere there are crumpled bits of paper being shucked to the ground.

 

He searches the crowd and finds her, smiling even though he is dripping blood and bruised.

 

She arches a eyebrow in his direction and stomps off to wait outside.

 

~~..~~

Here in the slanted shadows of the alley she can press her back against the warped wall and focus inhaling the fresh clean air that is so cold it stings her lungs. From her perch on a rotting crate she can see two young seam boys darting between legs, laughing. She focuses on them instead of the incessant crashing of her heart in her chest.

 

“Katniss?”

 

The bruises don’t look so bad in the dim halo of the streetlight. The cuts don’t look so livid and red. Katniss slides down and creeps forward on the balls of her feet to watch him. He hasn’t seen her yet. She could slip away if she wished, like a ghost.

 

He spins slowly, his eyes narrowed as they try to cut through the darkness. She steps back, into the dark and watches him as he searches for her. His shirt slung over his shoulder. She memorizes the faint outline of his spine knotted down his back, feeling the flush creep up her neck and not minding it a bit.

 

“Katniss, I know you’re here.” He accuses.

 

She can’t stop the slow grin from splitting her face as his eyes hone in on her shadow. She darts forward into the light.

 

Her smile melts away as his eyes lock on her face. There is something unreadable in his eyes, something that feels familiar, like she has seen it before, long ago. A sadness drips down into her stomach as she inhales sharply.

 

He offers a slanted grimace and reaches for her. The sight of the bruises on his face sends shards of something sharp skittering down her spine and she can’t help but duck away quickly, a primal reaction deeply ingrained within her. His face falls. She feels instantly ashamed.

 

“Are you afraid of me now?” He asks in a thick voice.

 

She really thinks about it. About him. She tries to imagine those bruised and bloody hands reached out toward her in anger but she can’t even fathom it. She only sees the hands that fed her family when she couldn’t.

 

“No.” She says. It sounds so resolute. So final.

 

He swallows and nods.

 

“I’m not my mother.” He says. She knows that there is no need to convince her of that. He must be reminding himself.

 

“I know.”

 

“Good.”

 

His fingers come up and trace her cheekbone gently and her eyes slide shut with relief as something tight untangles from her chest.

 

She imagine Peeta, pale and golden and rich surrounded by the green of a spring glen. She imagines that pounding heart beneath her fingertips. She can see the blue of the sky above her as she rests, cradled against his chest.

 

“Peeta?”

 

“Katniss?” He chuckles, ducking his head down to press his forehead against hers.

 

“Would you go somewhere with me?” She hates how unsteady her voice sounds, how her breath hitches in her chest.

 

“Yes.” He says with no hesitation.

 

“Really?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

She steps back, narrowing her eyes in his direction. She looks for any signs of apprehension or concern but he is just looking at her curiously.

 

“You aren’t going to ask me where?” She tries to keep her voice light and playful but truth is she is a little concerned about Peeta’s self preservation instincts.

 

“Should I?” His hand, swollen and bloody, reaches for her. She steps back again, her back hitting the wall behind her hard. He smiles crookedly. Her heart flutters. Does he think this is a game? He must the way he is smiling.

 

“Yes. For all you know I am luring you away from the district to murder you.” She sniffs.

 

“I’ll take my chances.” He whispers. She can hear something low and dangerous in his tone. Something that sends something tugging at her stomach as violent as if he had hauled off and punched her.

 

How does he do that? Just the sound of his voice can make the fine hairs on her arm stand on end. And every once in a while she catches him looking at her, his eyes wide and his pupils fat. It always makes her heart frantic and makes her breathless and she doesn’t understand it. She doesn’t understand any of it.

 

“You shouldn’t.” The words come out harsher than she means them to. Really is it so hard just to be polite? The way he smiles tells her he isn’t offended. She kicks the wall behind her.

 

“Katniss.” His tone startles her. It is far too serious to be the Peeta Mellark she has come to know.

 

“What?” She can’t bring herself to look at him. This is it. The part where he tells her this has all been an elaborate joke. He’s never liked her. She studies the specks of mud stuck to her boot.

 

His hands, gently tilt her chin up to look at him. It’s just muscle memory that has her jerking away from him at this point.

 

“Katniss, I’d go anywhere with you.”

 

His voice is quiet, persistent and she isn’t sure what she has done to earn such loyalty. She should tell him to run as far and as fast as he is able. That she brings nothing but bad luck. Her voice gets stuck in her throat. She watches helplessly as he creeps forward, a determined look on his face.

 

His lips are soft as the petals of a flower. She forces herself to push him away before she goes completely senseless.

 

“I need to get home,” She whispers as he press his lips to her neck, just behind her ear. She can’t stop the soft hiss that escapes her as his breath fans the delicate skin there. She can feel the soft rumble of his laugh as he does it again.

 

“I really-” His hands span the width of her back. “I need to-” Katniss tries to remember anything beyond her name and even that is danger as his lips trail their way down her neck.

  


There are no words left in her brain as his lips connect with hers, warm and insistent. His hands cradle her face as if she is made of glass. Her hands grip his bare shoulders his skin as she pulls him closer. Her fingers sliding up his neck to tangle in his curls, still damp with water and sweat.

 

His arm wraps around her waist as he steps forward, pressing her against the wall behind her.

 

Every inch of skin, every blood cell and hair follicle is alive and awake as his fingers skim the length of her side, sliding her shirt up to skim her tender, feverish skin.

 

He jolts back as if she has burned him. His fingers run through his hair as he backs up slowly and deliberately.

 

“Beat it, Everdeen.” He whispers with a crooked smirk.

 

“You aren’t going home?” She whispers. “It’s after curfew.” She can’t help the sidelong glance she gives at the now empty street.

 

“Are you scared?” His voice is teasing. He knows that she has never feared darkness. No it is something else entirely that has her shaking in the knees now. She looks directly in those dancing blue eyes when she says it. She lets it creep in and take over. The fear of the damage Peeta Mellark is sure to inflict on her already battered heart.

 

“Yes.” The word slices into her like a hot knife.  

 

His shoulders sag beneath the weight of the word as it lands. He looks down at his feet and then back up at her. His hand reaches for hers and she doesn’t flinch back as he takes it. They walk back to town together in silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ho man I was excited to share this one with you guys. I hope you like it!!! Thank you so much for reading and reviewing. I cherish each and every one even if I don't reply! I cherish each and every one of you! Have a wonderful night!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Be careful, Prim.” Temperance pipes up from where she sits forgotten at the kitchen table. “It’s one thing to be hated by Lilah Warren.” Temperance drags her fork across her plate. “It is another thing entirely to be loved by her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thank you to my beta, sunsetsrmydreams (or Shannon17 ) for being an amazing human being that can look through my mess of a fic and fix it for me. And put up with my run on sentences and all the she's I start my sentences with- no really this would be a mess with out her. 
> 
> I love you girl!

Katniss steps out of the house into wind. Gale sags down through the door and stands next to her, rubbing the back of his neck like he always does when he is nervous. Its nearing March and the cold has sunk her teeth in. The wind is bitter and the mud is frozen in the street, snow clings to everything. 

 

“Thanks again, Katniss.” She tries not to cringe at the sound of her name.”Those herbs have really been helping Posy.” 

 

“Don’t thank me,” She whispers. “Thank Prim.” 

 

She stomps down the stairs and across his yard. She watches her breath wisp from her lips so she doesn’t focus on the painful silence that has grown up between them. 

 

“Katniss-” 

 

She inhales sharply and turns to face him. She wishes she didn’t. His hooded eyes are narrowed in her direction. His hand rubs down his face roughly as he sighs. 

 

“What?” Her voice is sharp as a knife. 

 

“Do you love him?” 

 

Katniss balls up her fists as her heart stutters in her chest. Is it really any of Gale’s business? She wants to turn and run. Avoid the question just as she had done with Prim. Her heart aches in her chest. Gale is her oldest friend in this world. The person who she thought knew her best. There are a million silences between them. Days out in the quiet of the forest. 

 

Yet he knows this one is different. An answer to the question. He inhales like he is in pain. Her heart squeezes viciously. How can he be looking at her like that when she doesn’t even know the answer herself?

  
“We could have had a good life too.” He says, his voice firm but somehow he doesn’t sound angry. “I could have given you a good life. I need you to know that.” 

 

“Gale, this is twelve, no one has a good life.” 

 

“The odds just weren’t in my favor.” 

 

~~..~~

 

She taps sharply on the window. Peeta’s room is still gray in the early morning light. Katniss sighs, fidgets and taps again. Doesn’t he keep bakers hours? She thought he would be awake by now. 

 

It takes her three more times but finally she sees his shadow as he rolls out of bed. Then his face, still marred with yellowing bruises as he crosses the room and thrusts open the window with a soft grunt. 

 

“What do I owe the pleasure?” He says groggily. She focuses on the wall behind him. 

 

“Its Sunday.” 

 

“I know,” He says. “Hence the sleeping in.” 

 

“Meet me downstairs.” She smiles. 

 

“What-” 

 

She cuts him off with a kiss. 

 

“Okay,” He says with a grin. 

 

~~..~~

 

It is the tail end of winter and the day has dawned bright and cold. Katniss fishes her bow out of its log and walks with quiet authority ahead of Peeta as he trudges through the grass. It’s a good thing she isn’t hunting today, he is even louder when he’s tired. 

 

He doesn’t ask her any questions or try to fill the silence with small talk. He just grasps her hand, content to let her lead. 

 

~~..~~

 

They crest the last hill and she turns to him, breathless. 

 

“What is this place?” 

 

She squeezes his hand gently. 

 

“My favorite place in the whole world.” I when she says it she absolutely believes it. It is the one place she can still see her father's face and the ghost doesn’t feel impossible or unbearable. 

 

She has never brought anyone here. Not even Prim or Gale. Peeta takes in a shuddering breath and turns to her. 

 

“Isn’t it beautiful?” She asks. Her heart in her mouth. She isn’t sure why she is so nervous about his reaction. It is just a lake after all. 

 

Maybe so, but it feels like her one true home. The one place she didn’t have to keep the tired act together. The one place she could feel, whatever that means, whatever that entails. 

 

“It’s absolutely stunning,” He whispers but he isn’t looking at the glimmering green water, he is looking at her. “I wish I had my charcoal but I don’t think I’d do it justice.” 

 

She isn’t sure if he is talking about the glossy water or the smoky blue mountains, or her, she blushes anyway. His fingers tuck back her bangs. 

 

“Katniss, I-” 

 

His eyes are narrowed in concentration. It reminds her of the look Gale gives her when he told they could really run away.  It strikes up something inside of her. Something painful and feverish. It is like being burned alive. Like a funeral pyre. 

 

“Peeta?” She cuts him off quickly. Before he can say whatever desperate words were about to spill from him like water, like blood. 

 

“Hmm?” He smiles at her. It is crooked and utterly perfect in the way it’s imperfect. His fingers reach out and brush the tip of her braid. 

 

“We better keep walking if we want to make it to the lake before nightfall.” 

 

“That lake over there?” He points vaguely, his feet creep closer to her. She arches an eyebrow and rolls her eyes but his fingers are hovering over the tender skin of her neck. He watches with the enthusiasm of a child as her skin pebbles in anticipation of his skin against hers. 

 

“Yeah,” She breathes. Her breath is a puff of silver mist between them. “That’s the one.” 

 

“It’ll be there tomorrow.” He whispers against her lips. Then he tastes her and she can’t help but wonder she tastes like to him. He is like sunlight to her, rich and warm. What is she like? acid? Ashes? Whiskey? 

 

Her arms lock around his neck, pulling him close, then closer. His hands slip under her jacket and rest on her hips, his fingers slip underneath the hem of her  sweater and graze the bare flesh beneath. He pauses, waiting for her okay. 

 

There is a stillness between them. 

 

He looks at her patiently, always so patient. 

 

“Come on-” She mumbles to the slush under her boots. He doesn’t sigh or snap or whine. He is simply content to take her hand and let her lead him down to water. It is iced over with a thin veneer of ice. Most of the game is long gone thanks to Peeta but she can’t help but show off. She sets up the rusted cans she sometimes uses for practice. He watches with rapt attention as she preens under his watchful gaze. 

 

He gathers up some melting snow and makes a half hearted snowman. She climbs a tree while he complains about how high she is and won’t she come down already? 

 

They walk home hand in hand. Just outside of the district she lets him kiss her again and again and again. 

 

She knows they play a dangerous game. But just for today Katniss doesn’t care. She lets him kiss her senseless. 

 

It is the only explanation for why she forgot.

 

The wolves are watching. 

 

~~..~~

 

The district is eerily silent. A fog has rolled in. She lets Peeta take her hand because something in her is stirring at the way the entire seam seems, well, empty. Shutters are pulled tight. They meet no one on the road. 

 

Katniss whirls in a circle. Her braid whips around and Peeta deflects in with his hand before it can slap him in the face. 

 

“What’s happened?” 

 

It feels like the night after a reaping. The mourning period. 

 

They walk close but not touching. She can feel the heat radiating off of Peeta. It’s a comfort in all the cold. 

 

It isn’t a mystery for long. 

 

The square is packed. People craning their necks to see over the crowd. Katniss hears a distant sob. A faint snap, like a flag in the wind. 

 

Sae is at the edge of the crowd, shaking her head sadly. 

 

“What’s happened?” Katniss echoes again. Sae’s head snaps up. The color drains from her face. 

 

“Get outta here, Katniss.” The way Sae uses her name terrifies her. She has always been Girlie since she was a toddler on her father's shoulders. “You’ll just cause him more trouble.”

 

“Who? Sae?” Katniss tries to grab hold of the woman but she has skirted away. Katniss slips back as a peacekeeper eyes her and Peeta. 

 

Peeta. 

 

His face is white and bloodless. 

 

“Katniss?” His voice catches. 

 

“What is it? Is it Prim?” Her voice fractures at the idea. She starts to move through the crowd, frantic. 

 

“Katniss-” Peeta grabs hold of her elbow and jerks her to a stop. 

 

“Let me go!” 

 

“Katniss!” He barks. It stills her. She has never heard him so- desperate. Still she wrenches her arm out of his grasp and waits. 

 

“Just- wait here-” He takes off through the crowd, counting on the fact she would obey.

 

“What makes you think I am going to do that?” Katniss calls after him. It’s no use. He is long gone. Shoving through the crowd leaving Katniss a wide berth in his wake. Katniss scrabbles to follow. 

 

Then he is there, dragging her back the way she came. 

 

“Peeta!” She wrenches her arm out of his grasp. 

 

“Don’t look.” He says miserably. But it is too late, she catches sight of the tip of the whip sailing through the air. She hears it land. She knows. It’s him. 

 

She shoves her way to the front of the crowd in time to see another sickening hit. Cut over cut. The first thought that congeals inside of her head is that he no longer looks human. He is just strips of bloodied flesh, no different from the viscera she sees on a daily basis field dressing. He is just meat. 

 

Somewhere someone is screaming. A inhuman- unholy noise like nothing she has ever heard. People around her are staring. 

 

It’s her. 

 

Someone lifts her off the ground. Pulls her back. 

 

She comes back to herself in a flood. 

 

She screams again, a primal howl of a different kind. She throws her elbow and with a soft grunt she is released. Her boots hit the earth and she is running, pushing, her eyes narrowed in on the place where the peacekeepers helmet meets his uniform, the seam where just a sliver of skin is visible. The flaw in the system. 

 

She only needs to get her knife there, apply a little pressure. The man won’t lift his arm again. Tit for tat. Simple, if you think about it that way. 

 

The arms are around her again, yanking her back. She fights, she howls, she bites and she cries. All the good it does her in the end. Peeta lets her rage against him. He stands tall. A constant in the storm. 

 

He refuses to let her go.

 

~~..~~

 

He is so still. 

 

~~..~~

 

Has it been days? Hours? Years? 

 

Peeta only lets her go when the Peacekeepers are gone. She falls onto the cobblestones, mud soaking through the knees of her pants. 

 

All she sees is the red. 

 

Gale hangs like a limp doll. The smell of his blood, tart and metallic, hangs in the air. 

 

For a few beats all anyone can do is breathe. 

 

Then Katniss is crawling forward on her hands and knees. She staggers up the stairs and manages to find her hunting knife in her boot. 

 

When she cuts him loose he falls. He lands in a pool of his own blood. Katniss makes it three steps and vomits off the stage. 

 

She stands shakily and looks out over the crowd. Only a handful of people remain. She looks down at her blood soaked hands, at Gale, the lump of gnarled, bloodied flesh before her, unsure how to proceed. 

 

Peeta is there. He pulls her knife from her shaking hands and slips it into his belt. No one else has dared move. Like Gale is poison and who knows at this point he might be. This might be their death warrant.

 

“H-Help-” She feels like a ghost, hovering over all this carnage. A mockingjay in the trees. 

 

“We need something to put him on.” Peeta’s voice rings out through the silent square. A second passes, then two. Katniss is sure that Peeta and herself are going to have to carry him back to the seam themselves. 

 

Thom Weaver comes around the corner with a door someone has taken off the hinges. A few miners step forward to help lift Gale gently. Katniss follows after them mutely, like a small child. 

 

Haymitch Abernathy watches from shadows, a white liquor bottle hanging limply from his fingers. His greasy hair hanging in his face. 

 

“Gotta love a girl with a knife.” He slurs. 

 

She has never directly spoken to Haymitch Abernathy before. She knows of him, of course. The districts golden son. The one that got away. The drunk that sends children to their graves every year. If she wasn’t smeared with Gale’s blood she might have been nicer but she has no energy left for politeness. 

 

“Don’t you have two coffins to nail?” She sneers. She doesn’t slow her steps or pause to see if her words stick. 

 

“Ain’t you just a sweetheart.” He chortles. 

 

“ Victor.” She sneers, a parting goodbye. 

 

He laughs.

 

~~..~~

 

The hours blur together. Prim tries to salvage what skin she can, Her fingers stain red as she works and Katniss watches raptly as her sister narrows her eyes with determination. Hazelle clutches a crying Posy and Vick watches at Rory’s feet. It’s too quiet. Everyone afraid to so much as move, in case Gale were to wake up. 

 

Katniss sits on a hard backed kitchen chair and stares, stares, stares. 

 

~~..~~

 

Gale wakes. 

 

Katniss wishes for the silence back. 

 

~~..~~

 

A knock at the door startles everyone. 

 

Katniss swings the door open. 

 

“Madge?” 

 

Madge stands in the doorway, snow clinging to her coat and hair. Her belly protrudes from under her dress. 

 

“Here, use this for Gale.” She thrusts a box at Katniss.

 

“What is it?” 

 

“Morphling.” Prim pipes up from behind her. “It’s from the Capitol. It’s strong.”

 

“My mother gets headaches, sometimes.” Madge explains.. 

 

“Must be some headache.” Prim pulls a syringe from the box.

 

“Thank you.” Katniss whispers. 

 

“He helped me once.” Madge says flatly. This confuses Katniss, she hadn’t realized Madge even knew Gale. “Now we’re even.” 

 

Madge disappears back into the inky black night. 

 

~~..~~

 

It’s easier after Madge brings the medicine. 

 

Gale sleeps. 

 

Katniss grips his hand steadfastly. It didn’t matter what had happened between them in the past. He would always be her hunting partner. 

 

She hears what happened in fits and spurts. 

 

Thom tells her about the turkey. 

 

The new head peacekeeper Thread. When Gale had knocked on the door Thread didn’t waste a moment dragging Gale out into the middle of the square. Katniss squeezes his hand gently. 

 

She catches Peeta watching her from across the room. The candlelight flickers across his face, half obscured in shadow. 

 

What is he thinking? 

 

He looks down and away. 

 

~~..~~

 

She shakes Peeta awake as soon as curfew is lifted. The sky is still a muted gray and the snow has started to melt away  under a drizzle of rain. Katniss drags Prim beside her and does her best to avoid looking at Peeta. Afraid of what she will find if she looks to deeply. 

 

The apothecary is silent in the gray dawn light. Katniss and Prim climb the stairs tiredly. Katniss isn’t shocked when Prim climbs into her bed with her, like they did in the seam, all those months ago, back when there mother was a shell on a chair instead of a shell in a coffin. 

 

“He’ll be okay, Katniss.” Prim reassures, tilting her chin up to kiss her sisters cheek. “He’s young and strong.” 

 

Yes. Gale is young and strong. He is also angry. She thinks of all of the times he had raged at the Capitol out in the woods. The way he would go on for an hour barely taking a breath. It was tiresome but hopeless then. Now? 

 

It’s terrifying. 

 

This will only stoke the flames of his hatred. 

 

Katniss pulls her sister closer. 

 

“Yeah, he’ll be okay.” 

 

~~..~~

 

When Katniss wakes again it is midday. She feels slow and sluggish as she descends the stairs. Temperance clucks her tongue. 

 

“You need a bath, Katniss.” 

 

“Did I ask your opinion?” Katniss props her elbows on the table and drops her head into her hands. She doesn’t mean it, not really. It's just her head is pounding and her tongue is dry as sand and last night Peeta looked so- sad.

 

Temperance doesn’t say anything else, but she does glare at Katniss as she drops a plate of eggs and sausage in front of her with a dull thud, bits of egg go flying across the table. 

 

“Sorry they’re cold.” Temperance sniffs as she walks off. 

 

~~..~~

 

Katniss puts it off as long as she can. She folds the laundry and washes the dishes, she even scrubs the floor. It is when she goes out to feed Lady that she hears the dull thud of flesh against burlap and knows he is out there. She can’t put it off any longer. 

 

She crosses the bakery yard following the noise to the old shed out by the pig pen where they keep their garden tools and spare firewood. 

 

Peeta has been busy. He has cleared everything to one wall and hung an old flour sack from the ceiling with a length of rope. It swings as hits it, over and over and over again. Judging from the way his shirt clings to his lower back he has been at it for awhile. 

 

“Peeta?” He starts and stumbles forward. 

 

“Hey Everdeen.” He says. 

 

Something is wrong. His voice is stilted. He won’t turn to look at her. 

 

“Looks like you’ve been hard at work.” she teases flatly. 

 

“Yeah, I had some time.” 

 

“Did you even sleep?” 

 

He pauses a beat. She can almost hear his eyebrows raise. His tongue peel his cheek away from his teeth. The sardonic lilt to his lips. 

 

“I just needed some time to think.” His hand upends his curls and he huffs out a breath. Turning around slowly. Katniss is frozen in place in the doorway. She tells herself not to react. Still she can’t stop the soft gasp she emits when she catches sight of his face. 

 

“Oh, Peeta.” 

 

“Is it really that bad?” 

 

It is. 

 

His lip caught the brunt of the impact. There is a split down the center that oozes blood. His chin is bruised, a deep purple. 

 

Katniss pretends it won’t be her fate when Lilah gets back from the grocers. 

 

“What happened?” 

 

“Lost a fight with a rolling pin. I’ll be okay.” He smiles woodenly. “I’ve had worse, though I can’t think of anything right now.” 

 

Peeta swings around and his fist connects with the bag once more. Blood oozing from under the tape wrapped around his knuckles. 

 

“Let me see.” Instinctively she reaches for him. He lets her pull him out into the daylight and unwrap his hand. She does little more than stare at the raw flesh. 

 

She brushes her thumb across the ragged blisters. He flinches back. She can hear the sharp inhale of his breath. She knows he is gearing up for some long winded speech and she can’t let him. 

 

“Katniss-” 

 

“I care about him-” Her voice is sharp, precise. “He was my-”

 

“I know, I-” 

 

“It isn’t the same. It isn’t the same as what I-”  

 

He is the one good with words not her. She hates that it comes so easily for him. He leaves her gasping like a fish. His lips thin and his eyebrows knit together. She is sure that he is going to say something. It is on the edge of his tongue. 

 

There is much to talk about. Gale. The whipping. What this means for the district as a whole. For them. For Katniss. The whole mess makes her head spin. All of it is a mess for tomorrow. Today? She just wants to melt against Peeta.

 

She wraps her arms around his waist and clings to him for dear life. Slowly, his arms wrap around her shoulders, his hands fisting in her hair. He presses a kiss into the feverish skin of her forehead. He whispers something nonsensical against her skin and it is only then that she realizes she is crying.

 

All of the fear. The anger.

 

Pouring out of her. 

 

~~..~~

  
  
  


Katniss shuts the door to her room behind her quietly. She listens to the rain gently hitting the roof above her. She can still smell the rain on Peeta’s skin. She can still feel the echo of his arms around her. 

 

In this moment she knows exactly why her mother put that belt around her neck. 

 

Katniss feels like she has left a piece of herself behind with Peeta in his shed. Something irreplaceable. 

 

She will never be the same. 

 

~~..~~

 

Katniss listens to the insistent hum of the fence. 

 

She knew in her heart it was over.

 

Walking out to the meadow just confirmed it. 

 

~~..~~

 

Lilah is oddly subdued all through dinner. Katniss is like a ghost sitting in her chair. Lilah doesn’t so much as look at her. Still, she feel something brewing inside the old woman. 

 

Katniss was seen by the entire town screaming like a banshee. There is no way Lilah hasn’t heard by now. 

 

“Primrose, would you pass the salt?” 

 

Katniss spears her potato with her fork, bringing it up close to her face and examining it carefully. 

 

“You going to eat that potato or ask it on a date?” Temperance asks dryly. 

 

Katniss drops her fork to her plate. 

 

“Did you just make a joke?” Katniss asks incredulously. 

 

Prim giggles. 

 

“Eat your food.” Lilah growls. 

 

It’s infectious and Katniss can’t stop snickering with her sister. They twitter to each other at Temperance’s expense. 

 

Lilah stands abruptly. 

 

“Thea Warren!” Lilah roars, her chair clattering to the floor. “Did I not tell you to eat your food?” 

 

Katniss watches the smile slide off Prim’s face. Katniss wraps an arm around her sister. Prim shakes her off. 

 

“It’s Primrose.” Prim says in a high, clear voice. 

 

“What?” Lilah furrows her brow, her eyes narrowing at Prim. 

 

“You know that your daughter is dead right?” 

 

Katniss is startled by the directness in Prim’s tone. Her voice stretches and snaps and silence floods the room. 

 

Lilah grabs hold of her chair with white, bloodless fingers. 

 

“Yes.” Lilah says slowly. “I know my daughter is dead.” 

Prim looks wild and fierce, something that Katniss has never seen in her sister before. Prim looks at their grandmother like she is a bug under her shoe. 

 

“Good.” Prim sniffs. 

 

Lilah just stares. Her face pale as cream.

 

“I-I have a headache.” Lilah mumbles, her hand flying to her head as she turns and disappears behind her door. 

 

The instant the tumbler clicks into place Katniss whirls on her sister. 

 

“What the hell are you thinking, Prim?” Katniss hisses.

 

“It isn’t okay.” Prim says softly. Katniss feels herself sinking under the weight of her sisters voice. “The way she treats you. I won’t pretend that it is.” 

 

“So you’ll let her treat you just the same?” Katniss shoots back. 

 

“She thinks I am Mom, Katniss.” . 

 

The implication is there. Prim is soft and pale and pink, like Lilah’s golden child. Katniss is a bitter sore scar of the boy that took her away. 

 

“Be careful, Prim.” Temperance pipes up from where she sits forgotten at the kitchen table. “It’s one thing to be hated by Lilah Warren.” Temperance drags her fork across her plate. “It is another thing entirely to be loved by her.” 

 

~~..~~

 

The hob is packed with people. Katniss used to love the crowd, when she was just a child on her father’s shoulders. She found the people exciting. The women with trinkets pinned to their skirts and the gnarled old bitty that reads tea leaves and the man that comes to twelve once a year with the most beautiful things you had ever seen. Fabrics, jewelry, medicine - he had it all. If he didn’t? He could get it for you. No one knew exactly how he got away with it, traveling between the districts but no one was complaining when he had something as precious as antibiotics in that case of his. 

 

The Hob no longer has the edge of excitement for Katniss. Without her father to carry her she is hyper aware of how small she is. No one takes notice of her as she slips behind the curtain and shoves her way through the crowd of men hovering near the back. Someone whistles at her. Katniss whirls with a glare on her face as the men choke back a laugh. 

 

Luck smiles upon the men today. She’s at the hob on a mission and doesn’t have time to gut each and every one of them. She ducks and darts through the crowd and finds Sage near the fighting ring, tallying something up on a piece of scrap paper, a pencil shoved behind his ear. 

 

“Where is he, Sage?” 

 

“What, no hello?” Sage says with a wry grin. 

 

“I don’t have time for this.” 

 

“You aren’t much fun.” Sage finally fixes his eyes on her. “Anyone ever tell you that?” 

 

“Yeah, you every day.” She snorts. “Where is he?” 

 

“Last I saw him he was at Rippers.” Sage gestures vaguely toward Rippers stall. 

 

“Rippers?” 

 

“Hey,” Sage lifts his arms. “Don’t shoot the messenger. I just pay the nice man for his time.” Katniss huffs and storms off. 

 

“What, no goodbye?” He calls out after her.

 

~~..~~

 

She finds Peeta right where Sage said he would be. He is leaned against the old rotting door that Ripper uses as a counter. He is surrounded by a group of miners, laughing. The sight stills Katniss where she stands, struck dumb. 

 

She always thought of herself as a tightrope walker. The girl that walked the line between seam and merchant, and she is that. But she has never truly felt at home among anyone. How does he make it look so easy?

 

He smiles, completely at ease with his surroundings. She remembers how good he truly is. How he can make friends with anyone. How he can ease the harshest of rooms with a smile and a few smooth words. 

 

She looks down at her shoes, remembering how she had turned into a blubbering mess the last time she saw him. He was the one who had been hit! She feels selfish and small and then guilty when she admits to herself she wants nothing more than to drag him away from his new friends to somewhere safe and warm. 

 

Put him somewhere he can’t get hurt. 

 

“Well, if it ain’t sweetheart.” A voice mumbles from behind her. Katniss rolls her eyes. 

 

“If it isn’t- don’t they teach you proper grammar in the capitol?” 

 

He burps and glares at her. 

 

“You got something-” He gestures vaguely at his own face. Katniss swipes at her chin. 

 

“What?” 

 

“Drool,” He says, laughing at his own joke. “You’ve been staring at the bakers kid.” 

  
  


“Have not.” She snaps, stomping off as he laughs at her. 

 

Peeta hasn’t caught sight of her. She could tuck tail and make a run for it now, before he sees what a monster she truly is. She is about to slip into the crowd. Disappear. Sometimes being small has its advantages. 

 

He turns then, taking a sip from his glass. He catches sight of her from over the rim of the cup and smiles. 

 

“Fuck.” She mumbles. 

 

“Sorry gentlemen,” Peeta says, slapping a coin down and grinning. “I gotta go.” Katniss can barely hear him over the din of the crowd. 

 

He strides toward her, his smile growing with every step. 

 

“I didn’t know you were going to be here.” Peeta says. 

 

Katniss feels her heart sink at the sight of his lopsided smirk. The way his fingers glide down her braid, tossing it over her shoulder.

 

The pleased flutter in her stomach sends something black swimming at the edge of her vision. 

 

Because somewhere inside she knows that that happy little flutter ties her to him. Nothing has made her feel so helpless in all her life- not even the mighty Capitol. In her mind’s eye she sees her mother sitting in her chair with two dark holes for eyes. 

 

Maybe that is the problem. 

 

Her mother may have stopped breathing that spring day she wrapped that belt around her neck. She died somewhere in the foggy middle as she stared sightlessly, waiting in the hollow darkness for the man she loved to come and pull her out of the void. 

 

Katniss told herself she would never be that woman. 

 

Peeta looks at her expectantly. 

 

“I’m sorry, what?” 

 

His eyes narrow. 

 

“Katniss, are you alright?” 

 

No, she most certainly is not alright. Peeta Mellark holds a piece of her and he doesn’t even know it. She had given it away unwittingly, maybe on that rainy day so many years ago. Maybe it was always his. It doesn’t matter, now that she knows it is gone she feels… hollow- no- Hungry. 

 

“Katniss?” 

 

“I-I have to go-” She stumbles back, away from him. 

 

He calls after her. He chases her on his clumsy feet,  but Peeta doesn’t know the Seam like she does and it is all too easy to slip down an alley and lose him. She runs until her lungs sing and her legs scream. She streaks through the meadow, jumping clumps of dead grass and melting hunks of snow. 

 

She slows only when the fence gets in the way, crashing to her knees in the mud. She isn’t sure how long she is out there, listening to the hum of the fence as it holds her inside- away from the crisp clean air out beyond the mines. Her fingers scrape the frozen dirt beneath her. 

 

She tries to find the root of the problem. The blistering heat that leaves her cringing back whenever Peeta holds out his gentle hands to her. That thing that sends her skittering back like a scared animal anytime he tries to get too close. 

 

She decides it is the knowing that keeps her away. The knowing that at her core- she is just as damaged and weak as her mother. Waiting breathlessly for Peeta to come and rip a hole right through the middle of her. 

 

Peeta- the one that would never hurt her intentionally. The boy better than the rest of them. The one that tries so hard to keep her alive. 

 

And then there is Katniss, just as selfish and sorry as the rest of them- 

 

“Here you are.” She hears him kneel in the mud next to her. His fingers come up and touch her cheek. Or at least she thinks he does. Her cheeks have gone numb from the cold.“I found you.”

 

She sniffles and swipes at her nose with her sleeve, wrapping her arms around her knees and rocking back. 

 

“I wasn’t hiding.” 

 

“That’s why you are way out here.” He says evenly. “At the fence, as far away as you can get from me.” 

 

“I wasn’t hiding _ from you. _ ” she concedes.

 

“Okay,” He says slowly. “Who were you hiding from?” 

 

She sighs. 

 

He smiles and she knows she is caught. 

 

“I’ll leave if you want me to.” 

 

He thinks it’s him. She feels all of two inches tall. How does she explain to him that this is what she is? The moth in the dark to his flickering flame. How does she explain what it feels like to have your whole world cave in? To live in constant fear of having the irreplaceable ripped from you. 

 

“No,” She says, her voice surprisingly honest. “I don’t want that.” 

 

“What do you want?” 

 

Beyond the fence is a inky black night. Behind her is an uncertain fate. 

 

“I don’t know.” 

 

A stillness falls between them. 

 

“Okay, then.” He whispers. “I’ll wait.” 

 

“It might be awhile.” She says stubbornly. “You could freeze.”

 

His hand, calloused but warm, swallows hers. 

 

“I don’t mind.” 

 

~~..~~

 

Katniss loves the smell of the apothecary, though she would loathe to admit it to anyone. It smells like cloves and mint and the herbs her mother would mix into the ointments she would rub into their cuts. There is also the faint hint of lilac and lemongrass, like her mothers shampoo. It goes against every fiber of her being but Katniss can’t help but melt when she smells it. 

 

“Where have you been?” Lilah demands. 

 

Katniss groans and drops her bag on the floor. This makes Lilah sigh, a world weary sound. Katniss glares at her.

 

“I swear when you look at me like that you look just like your mother.” 

 

Katniss freezes. It is the first time she has ever acknowledged that Katniss is anything other than her father's daughter. 

 

Lilah turns suddenly and disappears up the stairs. 

  
  


XX.XX

 

“I have a surprise for you.” 

 

Katniss slams her locker shut. Peeta is leaned against the wall next to her. He’s in his dark blue sweatshirt and a pair of faded blue jeans. His curls damp from the rain. Katniss wants nothing more than to fling open her locker again, if only to hide her burning cheeks. 

 

“What is it?” She asks, scooping up her bag and following him down the packed corridor. 

 

“Katniss, I can’t tell you what it is. That totally defeats the purpose of a surprise.” 

 

They’re early for once so they walk slowly through the crowd. People have gotten used to seeing them together, for the most part. Only a few people whisper behind their hands at the sight of them. Katniss fixes a scowl on her face and hopes that is enough to keep the laughter to a minimum. 

 

“I hate surprises.” She grumbles.

 

Peeta bumps her shoulder with his and hands her a cheese bun, it’s still slightly warm and when she breaks it open the cheese inside stretches. She passes half back to him and he stuffs it in his mouth. She follows suit and Peeta smiles at the sight of her cheeks stuffed with bread. He reaches out and takes his time wiping away a couple of stray crumbs with his thumb. 

 

“Good surprise.” She says after she swallows. 

 

“That wasn’t the surprise.” Peeta says, grabbing her shoulders and guiding her through the open doorway of their classroom. “But I will file away that compliment.” 

 

“You better.” She snorts. “It’s the last one you’re getting mister.” 

 

He laughs, it’s light a short burst of sunshine on this frozen day. She sits at her table with Delly across the room from him but she swears she can still feel his warmth right beside her. 

 

~~..~~

 

Katniss steals glances all day. She can’t help but study the way his bruises are starting to yellow, the way his skin crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he smiles, the way he taps his pen against his pad of paper as he concentrates on his maths paper. 

 

The teacher calls on Katniss and she is left struck dumb with the whole class staring at her. Peeta draws what she thinks is suppose to be a three in the air with his pen. She blurts out the number and sighs in relief when the teacher nods, satisfied. 

 

Peeta winks and she turns quickly glaring at a chip in the dark black paint on the table in front of her. She itches to look up at him but forces herself to listen to her instructor instead of the furious pounding of her heart. 

 

~~..~~

 

Since Madge left school, Katniss is left without a partner in her physical education class. She reluctantly goes to stand next Delly to wait for the teacher. 

 

“So do you think the weather will be better by the spring festival?” Delly asks. 

 

Katniss just shrugs. The Spring festival starts on May day and lasts a week. It isn’t a Capitol affair but merchants set out stalls and some sell food at a discount. It is all about celebrating survival after another long, torturous winter. The few fiddlers left in the district begin playing at dusk and the peacekeepers never do anything about it because they are just as happy to have made it too. 

 

Katniss never really gave it a thought before, usually her and Gale would make a break for the woods on May day, using the peacekeepers preoccupation as an excuse to go hunt and gather. When the weather was good Katniss would find a nice flat rock and sunbathe the morning away, soaking the warmth into her skin like a lizard. 

 

This year everything is different. 

 

The fence is on. Her mother is dead. The peacekeepers are strangers. Gale doesn’t speak to her. She actually has the money to buy Prim a cup of iced tea and a cookie that they can share. 

 

“Do you think Peeta will ask you to dance?” Delly asks. 

 

Katniss can feel her cheeks burning. She hasn’t gotten used to the idea that people know about them. Especially when she hasn’t really even figured out what it is they are exactly. 

 

“I don’t know.” Katniss hisses. 

 

Delly stops stretching and watches Katniss carefully. Her blue eyes narrow at suspiciously. “He really likes you.” Katniss doesn’t like her accusing tone. 

 

“I know.” 

 

“He has for a really long time.” Delly crosses her arms over her chest. 

 

“What?” 

 

Delly smirks slyly, like she is in on a secret that Katniss isn’t and it pisses her off. Katniss is content to stalk off and spend the rest of the period hiding in the girls bathroom. She fixes the firmest scowl on her face and whips around, braid swinging. 

 

“Maybe he’ll tell you someday.” Delly doesn’t sound snotty just matter-of-fact. “Maybe you should just ask him about it.” 

 

“About what?” 

 

Delly is tight lipped and Katniss is left the rest of the period to chew on her words. What secrets could Peeta be keeping and what kind of danger they could mean for her?

 

~~..~~

 

“Close your eyes.” Peeta whispers. 

 

“No.” 

 

He sighs and his warm breath fans her ear sending a hot jolt zipping up her spine. She does her best to ignore it but then his nose brushes a tender bit of skin behind her ear. Katniss is frozen in place, her mouth suddenly dry as sand. 

 

He must know the effect he has on her because she can sense his smile as he brushes his lips across the shell of her ear and whispers. 

 

“Please?” 

 

She swallows and lets her eyes slide shut. He covers her eyes with his hand for good measure and pushes her through the door. Every fiber of her being screams at her to open her eyes. 

 

“Okay, we have to climb the stairs so I am going to trust you not to open your eyes.” Peeta says. 

 

He takes her hand and leads her up the stairs, using his voice as a guide she makes it up without breaking anything. She listens to a door being open, then shut behind them and then finally. 

 

“Okay, you can open them.” 

 

She blinks as she tries to make sense of what she is seeing. Katniss steps forward and touches the edge of a worn piece of paper. 

 

“It’s-” It’s her lake and the surrounding hills. He has captured it perfectly with nothing more than a pencil. Katniss can almost smell the heaviness of the water in the air and the the pristine pines that loom over it. She can strain her ears and hear the mockingjays and robins trilling in the trees. 

 

Peeta clears his throat and grinds the toe of his boot into the floorboards. 

 

“I know how much you miss not being able to go out into the woods. I thought this way at least you could still look at it.”  She clutches the paper to her chest. 

 

“Thank you.” She breathes. 

 

“It’s nothing-” He starts. 

 

But that isn’t true and they both know it. The longer Katniss spends cooped up in the district the surlier she becomes. This gift is a small rebellion. A way for her to conjure her freedom in a quiet moment. 

 

She sets the paper on a desk and steps toward him. They lock eyes and suddenly the room crackles with electricity. 

 

“Katniss?” 

 

He looks dizzy and afraid, like he is standing at the edge of cliff about to fall. It is the same way she must look. 

 

She brings her hand up and careful runs a finger along his jaw curiously. She likes the feeling of his stubble against her skin. His eyes slide shut as her finger traces the outline of his adam’s apple, then his collarbone and finally rests gently on the fabric of his plain white work shirt. 

 

His eyes flutter open and he looks down at her. Waiting for her next move. She should step back, turn and run to the porch where she can gulp in some fresh air or make a break for the fence like before. She shouldn’t be here, standing in Peeta’s bedroom hanging off the edge of something that she knows she’ll never be able to recover from. 

 

But when has Katniss ever done what she should do? 

 

It is the final thought she has before her fingers tangle in his shirt. Before she drags him down to crush her lips against his. Peeta’s arms wrap around her waist, his fingers skimming the skin of her lower back. Something hot and tight tugs through her stomach and she stumbles back, surprised. 

 

“Are you alright?” He asks. 

 

No, she isn’t alright. Delly’s words play back in her head. There is something in his eyes she can’t name but she recognizes it. It’s the same way her father would look at her mother when he would gather her up at the end of a long work day and she would giggle and tell him to wash up before he even thought about kissing her. 

 

“Was that okay?” His finger comes up and brushes her cheekbone. 

 

“Peeta, do you-” 

 

She stops flat, unsure of where she was even going with her thought. He waits for her to finish patiently. Distracting her by touching the velvet skin on her earlobe. Then she just plain forgets words and is pulling him back down to her as he chuckles, as if he has known all along what he was capable of doing to her. 

 

He hits the wall behind him with a dull thud. She tilts her head and parts her lips, his tongue brushes hers softly as he grips her hips, trying to pull her closer. 

 

His mother’s voice is like ice water and they break apart like frayed rope. Katniss touches her lips as she scoops up her bag and the picture. 

 

“I have to go-” She mumbles, not waiting for a response as she flees the room like it is on fire. She ignores Mr. Mellark calling her from the shop front. Her feet don’t stop until she is in the alleyway, alone in the mud she peels her fingers from her lips and looks up at the sky. 

 

And laughs. 

 

~~..~~

 

One morning Katniss wakes up to a bright blue sky. A sweet, warm Saturday that smells like honeysuckle and bakery bread. She dresses as quickly as possible and grabs her father’s coat and her game bag for the first time in weeks. 

 

While she couldn’t go out into the woods, she could still collect go egg hunting in the meadow. She decides to go track down Raven and do just that. She pulls her boots on and steps out the door, yelling a goodbye to Prim. 

 

It seems the good mood has spread through the district. The bakery has it’s back door thrown open. A group of children plays a game of kickball in the alley.  Katniss takes a deep breath and steps off the porch. 

 

She catches sight of the shed, the quiet shuffle of feet inside. She twists her bag in her fingers and bites her lip. 

 

She hasn’t been avoiding him exactly. She’s been avoiding that excited little swoop her stomach does anytime he is within fifty feet of her. To his everlasting credit Peeta seems content to let her take the lead. He waits for her as usual.

 

She takes a step toward the shed, thinks better of it and stops cold again. 

 

Really, it shouldn’t be so hard. There are girls that handle these kind of things with grace and ease.

 

“Get it together.” She mumbles to herself, forcing her body to stride forward and knock on the door. She scuttles back to wait for Peeta to answer. 

 

Her fight or flight tells her to make a break for it and not to stop till she hits district 4 but she plants her boots firmly in the mud and grinds her teeth. 

 

“I know, Rye-” 

 

He throws the door open. His curls are mussed and his shirt is damp with sweat and she loses her train of thought and stares at him stupidly as he waits for her to say something, anything and this was a bad idea- 

 

“You’re not Rye.” He observes, leaning against the lintel of the door and grinning wryly. 

 

“Nope.” 

 

There it is. That frightening little flutter is back and her stomach knots up. She is suddenly frightened that she might throw up on Peeta’s feet. 

 

“I, uh, I have to go-” 

 

“Katniss-” 

 

“No, No. I can’t-” But she doesn’t explain herself, she just runs for the road that leads to the Seam. Streaking right passed her childhood home. 

 

She doesn’t stop for breath until she has climbed the largest tree in the meadow and then she leans against the trunk, watching the birds, little black dots soaring over the bright green hills in the distant sky. 

 

She hears him before she sees him of course. He has the gift of finding every branch within a quarter mile of where he is at any given time. Katniss watches as he stands in the middle of the meadow.

 

“Katniss?” 

 

She scarcely dares to breathe. He calls her name out a few times and then leaves and her gut twists painfully at the way his shoulders sag. 

 

Finally she sits with her feet dangling. She owes him an explanation. A reason she is the way she is. Even if there was  a way to explain Katniss doubts she could get it out in a way that could truly convey the way he makes her heart stutter. The way he makes her feel helpless- like a fawn caught in a snare and then in the same breath can make her feel like a mockingjay in a perfect blue sky. 

 

Katniss stays up in that scraggly tree all day, not even hunger can bring her down. She lays there and drags her finger across her bottom lip, remembering the warmth of Peeta pressed against her. 

 

Then remembering the color of her mother’s eyes as she stared at the mouth of the mine, waiting for a reason why her husband was swallowed whole, never to return. 

 

The sky turns a dusty mauve, darkening the mountains to a silhouette. Katniss goes still and tries to remember how she would do this out in the woods- how it would come alive as she melted into the background. 

 

Maybe that is the problem, with Peeta she feels- seen. It has been her goal for so long to blend in, to hide in plain sight. 

 

But Peeta has always seen her, flight or falling. Even as she starved slowly in the rain. 

 

Katniss climbs down feeling stupid and sore, wasting a perfectly good day by hiding in a tree. 

 

“I was wondering when you were going to come down from there.” 

 

She startles back. Peeta stands there in a black t-shirt and worn slacks, a jacket tossed over his arm. 

 

“Have you been down here the whole time?” She snaps. 

 

“No, uh-” He shifts his weight from foot to foot. “I had a shift at the bakery but it’s getting chilly so I thought you might need a jacket.” He steps forward carefully, like he is afraid she is a bird that might fly away. He wraps the jacket around her shoulders and buttons the top button. Now that he mentions it she was  kind of chilly. She isn’t anymore. She tucks her nose against the collar. It smells like cinnamon and vanilla.

 

“How’d you know where I was?” 

 

“You really aren’t as sneaky as you think you are Katniss.” He chuckles softly. “Plus I am heading to The Hob.” 

 

“Right,” She whispers. “It’s fight night.” 

 

“Yeah.”

 

“You want to come along?” 

 

She can’t think of anything she would want to do less than see him bleed. She shakes her head. She just wants to go home and sit on the floor of her room and try to make sense of this mess. 

 

“Okay well, do you want me to walk you home?” 

 

Again she shakes her head. 

 

He touches her cheek briefly before starting down the road. She watches his back as he walks and is filled with panic. Anything can happen during those fights. He could break his nose or worse- 

 

“Peeta!” 

He turns around as she rushes forward. 

 

“I- um-” 

 

He must think she’s a blithering idiot. Katniss shakes her head. How could she possibly explain herself. 

 

She steps forward and presses a kiss into his cheek. 

 

“Good luck.” She says. 

 

He smiles like he’s seeing sunshine for the first time. 

 

She unbuttons the jacket and tries to pass it back to him. He is still grinning like an idiot as she shoves it into his hands. He blinks down at it and hands it back. 

 

“Looks better on you.” 

 

~~..~~

 

Katniss lays on the floor of her room. studying each and every slat in the ceiling. She’s waiting for him to come home. She needs to be awake in case he needs stitches or ice, though she doubts he would be knocking down her door for doctoring. 

 

So she hovers and listens for the crunch of his boots in alley. Meanwhile her hand wanders under the bed. 

 

She is surprised as her fingers come into contact with a plain brown box- the kind that the cartwrights put their shoes in. Katniss tugs on it and immediately recognizes her mother’s neat handwriting scrawled on the top. 

 

Katniss traces it. She feels a wealth of emotions run through her at the sight of it. Katniss gingerly lifts the lid up. 

 

She isn’t sure what she expected to find but it isn’t a million little scraps of paper, like snowflakes. Katniss lifts a small, white paper bird out of the box and makes a small noise at the back of her throat. 

 

She can see her father’s fingers working, clever and quick, to fold scraps of paper into the most wonderful things- like a flower or a dog- just to make his eldest daughter smile. 

 

She drops the bird back in the box and lifts a piece of paper. She expects to see her fathers writing but it doesn’t stop her heart from lurching in her chest at the sight of it. Slowly Katniss peels each note open and she reads, though it feels like an intrusion. Even in death her parents feel like a unit that belongs only to each other. To her mother this would be an unforgivable offense.

 

Each note feels mundane. Her father talks about his life in the seam, his mother, a woman Katniss never met, he talks about his trade route and the woods. Some tiny part of Katniss withers. 

 

Her father was her light. The man that taught her how to survive. A handsome man with eyes like a winter sky. 

 

These notes? She doesn’t know this man. 

 

She holds the notes in one hand. The weight of her parents love is light as air. 

 

She aches with all the questions she wants to ask them. But one question looms at the forefront of her mind. 

 

“Was it worth it?” 

 

There is one thing left in the box. Something Katniss can’t bring herself to lift up into the light. 

 

A Katniss flower. 

 

It is withered and pressed flat. And Katniss is sure that if she dares to touch it, it will melt to ash so she leaves it where her mother left it, a testament to their love. 

 

Katniss can hear the scrape of his boots dragging in the mud and she carefully sets the pile of notes back into the box and slides it back under the bed. She stands and strides over to the window, pulling it open slowly so the aged wood doesn’t groan. She shimmies out the window and slides into the tree effortlessly. Leaping down and rolling up on the balls of her feet just as Peeta crosses into her yard. 

 

“Jesus-” He starts, and she smiles. 

 

“Who isn’t sneaky?” She quips. 

 

He flashes a grin. 

 

“Nice to see you, Everdeen.” 

 

“Nice shiner.” she comments, tilting his chin so she can examine it in the fading porch light. 

 

“You should see the other guy.” He is smiling but it doesn’t reach his eyes. 

 

“Peeta-” 

 

“Katniss, what do you want me to say?” 

 

She is startled by the sharpness of his tone. She really examines him. His shirt is skewed and dotted with blood. His curls are mussed like he has run his fingers through them a million times. 

 

“Peeta?” 

 

“I’m sorry Katniss, I uh, I just had a long night.” 

 

“Okay.” She whispers, wrapping her arms around her middle. She watches mutely as he crosses the bakeries yard and instead of stepping up onto the porch he steps into his shed and slams the door behind him. Shutting the rest of the world out. 

 

~~..~~

 

It’s early, the sun hasn’t even come up and Katniss is already at the stove, warming up some milk for Prim’s breakfast while Buttercup mewls at her at her ankles. She stirs slowly as she listens to the birds through the open window. 

 

There is a crash and heavy footsteps on the stairs. The door flies open and Bram stands there in his hat and jacket, glaring at her. 

 

“I assume this belongs to you.” He spits, dragging Raven out from behind him by the collar of her coat. 

 

“And I see we are giving my clothes away, thanks for it, girl.” 

 

“You’re scaring her to death.” Katniss growls. 

 

Raven scrambles back on her hands and feet until her back hits the cupboards behind her. Bram steps over her and points in Katniss’s face. She can see a vein pulsing in his neck. 

 

“Be careful!” He snarls. “The last time someone brought someone from the seam around this house, Temperance almost died.” 

 

He narrows his eyes at the little girl that clings to Katniss, peeking out at him with frightened eyes. 

 

Katniss watches his eyes soften slightly. 

 

“For God sakes get her something to eat, she’s wasting.” He finally says, striding out of the room. 

 

As Katniss fills a bowl with corn mush and milk she wonders if her mother wasn’t the only Warren with a weakness for seam folk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading friends, I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> Questions? Want to wring my neck? You can find me on tumblr as awkwardeverlark


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